


pbg hc goretober foolery

by idontknowhowtoread (heatherpotts)



Category: PBG Hardcore
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eye Trauma, Gen, Gore, Goretober 2019, Impalement, Self-Hatred, also todd is consistently horrible, and doll dean lots of doll dean i love that au he comes around a lot, it is goretober what do you want from me, mostly regular hc stuff plus a couple funky little aus, these get.. more psychological as this goes on watch out for the love of god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-10 15:47:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 30,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heatherpotts/pseuds/idontknowhowtoread
Summary: i am being driven mad with power





	1. day 1/blind

**Author's Note:**

> this is really just.. spooky season gore writing sprints fhgfd don't expect much more than that
> 
> god I hope im gonna be able to keep up with this sdfhgfd,, also the prompt list is from uhh cyaniq but seth sent it to me since its the one hes using so. shout out! I realize these prompts are probably meant for art and way more suited for it given how vague they are but. fucka you my brain is huge
> 
> tw for like.. eye horror stuff.. the prompt is blind figure it out

The first thing Dean noticed was that it was cold.

He wasn't sure where he was, or what had just happened, but it was cold. And when he tried to move onto his side, it _ hurt _like a bitch. It felt like every part of him was bruised, like there were bits of dirt and shards of gravel digging deep into his skin, and… 

_ Well, _that's just what it was.

He was in the mines still, he was pretty sure. The air was stale, thick with dust and debris that was probably giving him lung cancer, humid and heavy all the way down here. And thick with the smell of blood, presumably his own. Even though it hurt just as bad to breathe, even as he coughed up what had the texture of blood with that same debris mixed in, it couldn't be mistaken for anything else. 

… How he got here, now, was the question.

He supposed he had gone mining. That was easy enough to figure out, but… When? What… happened?

Everything hurt, it hurt to move and to breathe and there was rock stabbing into him at every angle. And he was cold, thrown to the floor like a discarded toy, left only with the burning sensation coming from his countless cuts and wounds to keep him warm.

It must have been an explosion. But then came the question, how was he still alive?

It was too dark to see. If it was a creeper, or some kind of trap, maybe it destroyed the torches he had set up. Was he alone, actually? All he could muster up from himself was a whimper, mostly drowned out by the constantly ragged breaths he struggled through, but maybe someone could hear him. If there was any other sound, he couldn't hear it.

But he could do this. He was alive, and he could survive this. It's what he did. Maybe more monsters would come along, but that's exactly why he needed to get out a torch, even if it made his wounds burn like the fires of the Nether themselves, almost as if they were ready to give out, fall off completely.

He managed to pull himself up to sit against the stone wall, the roughness of it and the tiniest spikes digging into his back, but that was the least of his concerns. It was still so cold, and so quiet, and if he didn't do something soon, he'd…

Well, he'd probably die. 

His bag managed to survive the explosion, still strapped to his back, although he feared it might not have kept all of its contents. But there was no time for that yet, all he needed was a torch.

He felt around blindly, finding lumps of rock and... _ squishy _ things, leather and sticks, and- oh, sticks, that's good. 

Even as he did that, he found himself focusing more on the pain. The way the textures of the interior of his bag brushed against his bag and burned in an even brighter way, how _ something _ had to be broken with him, maybe some of his joints, _ definitely _ a couple ribs, and while every bruise and scratch buzzed all along his body, his chest hurt especially. And his thigh, which he didn't touch much, but there was _ something _there, definitely. And his face. He could still feel his glasses hanging limply on the bridge of his nose, but…

_ Fuck, _ the lenses had to be broken. Lighting a torch might not even be all that helpful, if he can't see _ shit _ regardless. Finding that broken glass wouldn't be enjoyable either, would it? If he stepped on it while trying to get out of here, he'd be _ so fucking pissed_.

He fished the stick out of his bag, his grip both painfully tight and worryingly loose in actuality, and swiped it against the wall, praying it would light.

Dean knew it did, he felt the burst of heat and could hear the crackling of the flame, but… no light seemed to come from it. 

He held the torch in front of his face, _ felt _ the licks of flame coming from it, and still saw no light. There was still _ something _ in his vision, hallucinations of swirls and bursts of color in the pitch darkness, supposedly that thing the brain does when it doesn't have anything to look at, but… This _ wasn't _right. This couldn't be right. 

Was this a chunk error, or something? Maybe the torch wasn't working right. Maybe it was just really, really dark, and that's why he couldn't see. Or was he already dead?

Dean knew he was just trying to convince himself that what had happened actually hadn't, that he was lying to himself, but _ god, _ this was so bad. This was _ so _ bad.

He dropped the torch and felt it nearly burn his leg, but that was the least of his worries. He raised his hands towards his face, carefully pulling off his glasses like they might hurt him.

And he tried to touch his eyes, and nearly cut himself on the glass.


	2. day 2/impaled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting this early bc I don't wanna wait til after school to post it gfskfs
> 
> bronze gave me lucah when I asked for a character for this so. thanks legend :)
> 
> tw for. impalement ofc… also kinda drowning stuff? sort of

Lucah was pretty sure this wasn't a part of the plan. They couldn't have known this would happen, could they?

They told her that they had done this goal before. The ocean monuments, which sounded really freaky but were actually way he easier than they seemed, Dean explained to her, in that hyped-up, eager way he always did.

The blue blocks that Lucah couldn't help mining, just because they looked cool, she knew about those long before. The fact that it was at the bottom of the ocean, yep, and the time they spent on boats rowing aimlessly just _ looking _for it was made out to be the hardest part. The size of it, the blocks of solid gold they could take from the center, the three big Elder Guardians they had to kill. Just these big, scary, pufferfish-looking things, but they just had to build little shields to protect themselves from their attacks.

It was supposed to be easy. The hardest parts, finding the monument itself, going to the Nether and brewing all their potions of water-breathing, that all went _ swimmingly_. Hah.

And when they did find it, when they had their last little circle of encouragement and hyping themselves up before downing their first potions and diving down, Lucah didn't see any reason any of this could go wrong.

Sure, the very real fears of drowning and the paranoia of somehow getting lost or trapped in there, even simply letting the potion's effect run out and start to drown without even noticing, but she had squashed most of those down by then. By the time they were well into the monument, two out of three Elder Guardians down and countless regular guardians slain in their path, they had built up a sort of rhythm. It was still pretty terrifying, the pressure from both the water and their mission was immense, and the fact that they couldn't communicate much at all felt so _ strange _with how talkative their party usually was; but still, it was pretty fun.

They- meaning PBG, Jeff, Mcjones and Dean- had done this before, and Lucah was very much trusting in their wisdom. Jeff was the master of potions, Mcjones was the master of making sure they all kept an eye on their time, that they stayed focused on their mission and that they actually _ had _everything they needed, and well, Dean and PBG were the masters of acting like they knew what they were doing.

_ Hey, morale is the most important part of a crew. _

But there was something that always sort of _ irked _ Lucah, those being those… weird, _ water-zombies, _as Austin called them, meaning zombies that just happened to be the water.

Nobody seemed to know what they were, not even Mcjones. They dismissed it as just a zombie, maybe it was something like the zombie villagers and that's why it looked weird, but Lucah could never quite get it out of her head.

They weren't around often, but she saw them a good few times. Whenever they were close to the shore or a river, especially when they were searching for the monument, those _ weird ass _drowned zombies were always around. And they never posed much of a threat, seeing as they behaved merely as slower, swimming zombies, but it wasn't particularly comforting to her that nobody really knew. 

Nobody knew this was going to happen. She didn't blame them, not in the slightest.

But as they were making their way towards the end of their mission, searching for the last Elder Guardian, they found another one.

One with a trident. 

One, that Lucah got to see up close, how its skin was decayed and bloated by the water, how it moved almost like a _ serpent, _ and how the trident _ glinted, _ despite the fact that the only reason Lucah could even see was because of her night-vision potion.

And she knew this was no regular zombie. Not even a variant, and definitely not some glitch.

It threw its trident, gliding through the water with more speed and _ power _ than it _ ever _should have had, and tore right through Lucah's chest, its three prongs poking out on the other side. 

And she didn't blame them, not in the slightest. They didn't know, but it still didn't feel fair. They, _ she _was so close, but…

She couldn't even scream. That seemed cruel. All she could do was watch the blood blossom in the water around her, capturing her in a cloud of red. She couldn't even feel much, as she knew she was fading, _ so _fast. It had caught her right in the heart, hadn't it? If not that, her lungs, and she was hopeless either way.

And as the cloud around her faded from red to black, she wondered if drowning would have been preferable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate drowneds so much theyre the worst fjgffk,, sorry lucah


	3. day 3/eyes+teeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for,, body horror I guess? just kinda monstery,, this was fun honestly its just my lab si bullying mcjones dfhgfd

Beyond the fact that Mcjones considered himself to be the one that knew  _ everything,  _ the wise one who knew what everything was and how to get around it, he wasn't particularly faithful in his actual…  _ survival skills. _

That was mainly because he had absolutely no idea  _ what  _ it was he was running from. Hiding from, now, pulling his knees to his chest, behind a tree of oak darker than he had ever seen. The dirt was wet, squelching with every step, which made it  _ particularly  _ disturbing that he couldn't hear much of anything right now, other than the buzzing of cicadas and his own muffled breathing, his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

He had never been  _ anywhere  _ like here before. Where the wildlife was so thick it seemed to pull him down, like every patch of grass and mushrooms were made of quicksand, and it was just as thick above him, completely obscuring the night sky. He was practically suffocating himself with his hand over his mouth, just trying to keep himself quiet, but he could barely breathe regardless, the air thick with fog and darkness and  _ something  _ that filled his lungs with pins, pricking him ceaselessly. 

And all that wasn't even what Mcjones was most worried about. Here he was, cowering like a child behind a tree, surrounded by brush and mud that yearned to pull him down, and  _ still,  _ this was preferable to trying to run, trying to escape whatever it was that was chasing him,  _ hunting  _ him.

That's what scared Mcjones the most, he was sure. He didn't know what it was that was hunting him, didn't know where he was or how this place worked, and he couldn't even say for sure if hiding really  _ was  _ his best option.

As dark as it was here, he had still managed to catch a couple details of whatever  _ it  _ was that was chasing him, in the few glints of moonlight that filtered through over head and in the torchlight when he was  _ stupid  _ enough to light one.

And he cursed his memory, because even with how stupid he was, he couldn't even hold onto most of what he saw.

What he saw wasn't easy at all to explain, in his defense.

The first thing he noticed was the  _ eyes.  _ All of them,  _ it  _ was covered in them, which was notable in multiple ways.

For one, most of the monsters Mcjones had grown so familiar with didn't  _ have  _ eyes at all. Not the zombies, not the hollow skeletons, not even the creepers, each one carrying only empty sockets. The spiders did, obviously, as did the Endermen, but they were notably the exceptions. The Endermen really only had glowing purple orbs for eyes, and the spiders were  _ spiders,  _ but even so, he had never seen  _ anything  _ like  _ this. _

Not in any monster, at least.

The eyes of this monster seemed almost… human. Each of varying size, like they were plucked from a variety of animals, the whites reflecting in the light and each iris a different color, each pupil blown wide in bloodlust.

And the other reason it was so  _ notable  _ to Mcjones was that there were so,  _ so  _ many. Too many, too many to count. On its face, trickling down its neck, dotting its limbs and each staring straight at Mcjones, burning into him.

Which was disturbing enough in its own right, but then he noticed the  _ teeth. _

Which were in a similar capacity, appearing in places they shouldn't be, almost as if the creature was covered in tumors, with those  _ things  _ simply sprouting from it, but it still had a mouth.

… Have a mouth, it certainly did.

One that fell wide open when Mcjones could see it completely, wider than  _ anything  _ Mcjones could even imagine any other creature doing. Maybe the Ender Dragon when she spewed her dragon's breath, but  _ this, this  _ was  _ so  _ very different.

Not even she had teeth like this.

This creature had many,  _ much  _ too many rows of teeth, almost like that of a shark's, except for the fact that they seemed to move in almost  _ infinitely,  _ even down the creature's throat.

That, if not everything else about  _ its  _ appearance, its mannerisms and how it  _ taunted  _ Mcjones even now, gave him a pretty good idea of what exactly it wanted to do with him. 

He wondered if this thing caught him, if it would take his eyes and implant it into its skin, if it would take his teeth and simply  _ swallow  _ him whole.

And he wondered where it was now, if he couldn't hear it, couldn't know its plan, its path.

He had a feeling he might not have to wonder for long.


	4. day 4/scratches+bruises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this ones a little more tame with the gore itself 😔 still watch out for blood and ouchies and stuff but. its the prompt
> 
> also I wrote this in da noodles yesterday jhgfsd and I don't know how it ended up being soft but here we are

"Good lord, what happened to you?"

Dean chuckled at the way Mcjones said that, but it came out more as a wheeze, with what little air he could manage breathing in.

What _ did _ happen to him? Dean wasn't even sure if he could say.

He was just walking; looking for some cows or something, that was it. And he found one, _ he was pretty sure, anyway, _ but either he tripped on something, or he just _ fell_. 

He wasn't actually sure how long he fell for, rolling down the rocky hillside, scraping his skin and embedding bits of rock and pebbles into it, remaining even now.

And then he managed to fall directly into a rose bush. Or would a _ thicket _ be a better word? Something with thorns, that still dig into every inch of his skin, that nearly tore his throat open, that left him crawling back home, making a trail of his blood.

It was a bit of a _ Jeff moment _ of him, one could say.

And that would have made him laugh more, if not for how his ribs were probably broken, if not for how hard it was to breathe and every movement that was too sudden left him doubled over in pain.

Seeing Mcjones with that _ face _ was a different kind of pain, one that portrayed more concern and compassion from him than he usually allowed himself, one that left Dean with quite a bit of guilt when this was all over.

But right now, he could still laugh at it. As much as he could physically muster, at least.

He had practically fallen into Mcjones' arms at some point, every gust of wind, every touch of fabric and every _ touch _ from Mcjones drew his attention back to the countless scratches and bruises that left him barely able to stand on his own.

He was lucky, really, for getting away with the scratches and bruises and breaks that he did. He was lucky to crawl home at all, he could have just laid there and withered until someone came to rescue him, which he doubted anyone even would on that side of the hill. He could feel the blood dripping down his face, but he was lucky not to poke his eye out _ again, _ even his glasses survived the fall, although they were now scratched to all hell. 

He had braved worse before, sure. He'd definitely been through worse, even _ killed, _ in much less avoidable, much more _ honorable _ circumstances. But it was just so _ funny, _ because he honestly thought he might die, again. He had been bleeding for quite a while now, whatever bones were broken and how many bits of shrapnel were still embedded in his skin had left him awfully weak, his vision was swimming, he could barely breathe, and there was the strange sensation in the back of his mind that he was still _ falling. _

"... Fell," Dean replied, choking a bit on what must have been blood in his throat, but still lacking the strength to get it out. 

Mcjones had that look in his eyes; that one of panic, like he was the one falling. Undoubtedly, he noticed all the blood coming from Dean, noticed all the blood now on his hands.

"... C'mon, get inside. I'll help you."


	5. day 5/bisection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was bullied for not knowing what this prompt meant and thinking it was a math thing when I googled it shjgfds,, I got kinda mixed feelings on this one honestly f, these are getting more,, psychological I think idk if that's me running out of ideas or what fdhjd,, but still this was fun!! don't ask me what I was going for with it I do not know but it was fun
> 
> also we're back to some bigger boy gore now although its a little less. clear than i'd really like it to be oops,, also self hatred and. I guess implied suicidal thoughts? watch out bro

This was a cruel sort of game the universe was playing on him, Jeff knew. 

He had been alone for so long, separated without knowing where his friends were and if they were alive, that now, he was worth no more than a lame dog, for the universe to kick to get its fun.

He knew, now. His friends died on that little trip they took, and Austin, who they left with him, died about a month ago, falling down into a mine that Jeff was _ seconds _away from walking into. It wasn’t fair at all, but… none of this was.

And now, he was alone. What was left of his friends, his love, his heart; was cut in half, then withered to what little remained now. He felt like a mannequin, an animal being tested upon, just to see how much he can take.

He started noticing _ it _after he found out his adventurer friends had died; the universe, or Todd, or whatever started to really take joy in cutting things in half. That, or he was just going crazy.

But he noticed trees, cut down and sliced with surgical precision, laid in the most inconvenient places for Jeff. Dangerously close to falling on their- _ his _house, in the middle of the paths he had laid out meticulously, in the trees that housed bird nests, leaving eggs cracked in half on the stones and squirrel nests sawed in half.

Then, his tools simply started breaking, iron swords shattering right down the blade, shovels breaking off at the handle, his _ fucking _ diamond pickaxe turning into a diamond hoe. It was _ infuriating. _ His food would come out of the furnace, already sliced in half, his wheat would seem to disintegrate in his hands, the stone of the roof would split and let in the rain, and it was all just so _ tiring. _

He got the message, okay? He was broken, he was bisected and was now a lonely, wrathful shell of his former self. Maybe it was him breaking all his tools, mowing down trees without a second thought and without remembering it, without even _ thinking, _but it just wasn’t fair. 

He didn’t go to the graveyard; he was too terrified of the _ notion _alone that their headstones would be vandalized, split in half. That their graves would be dug up, and what little Jeff had to bury, contorted bodies, limbs, or merely their belongings, would be broken in half indiscriminately. 

He half hoped that the universe would get bored, and just rip him apart. No semblance of a realistic death, no prior warning, he would have been perfectly content with being ripped in half, starting at his chest and pulling him in two different directions, because that’s all the universe wants to hammer into his skull. That he went the wrong way, that he should have done something, anything different, that he was _ alone. _

And even all that was before he started finding the animals. 

The chickens that often waddled around his front lawn started turning up dead, torn in half from the chest, broken eggs littering the grass. Jeff couldn’t even use the meat they left, it was practically _ pulverized, _and almost immediately, Jeff just couldn’t handle it. Then came the pigs, the cows, all pulled apart with a viciousness that not even the Ender Dragon possessed.

Jeff really didn’t know what he did to deserve this. Sure, he was stupid, and the deaths of all of his friends were all his fault, and he hated himself, and he had already _ failed, _ but did it all really have to be so _ bloody? _Did it really have to dye his hillsides red, turning the river that very color and flooding it, making it dig even further into the land? When would he be torn apart, in that same agonizing, awful way? It’s what he deserved, wasn’t it?

He never got that. The universe kept pulling things apart for him; sheep, leaving clumps of wool just about everywhere, pink darkened to red and blowing unstoppably around Jeff’s home. Sheep, and his wolves, one by one, leaving fur to the wind and blood in his wooden floors, and each death Jeff witnessed pulling him a little further in either direction. Is this the way the universe wanted to do it? Not physically, but pull him apart mentally, emotionally, until he had no choice but to end himself like a _ coward? _

He didn’t understand why, but the point sure got across. 

The universe, or was it really _ him- _ pulled apart monsters too, any object, alive or undead, that could be broken. He found rotten flesh, broken bones and pinches of gunpowder whenever he managed to make it outside, and all that it did was drive the point home, that this was no longer about winning, that this was no longer about the dragon.

This was about atonement, punishment, because all of _ this, _ all of this death was his fault. 

Only when the universe decided it was finally right to dig into his chest, pull apart his heart and tear him in half with its fingers, would he be freed of this. 


	6. day 6/plant growth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting this at midnight bc I don't wanna wait to post it in the morning fdghfsd,, this is the longest chapter yet and I also don't know how to write ray very well?? help
> 
> tw for lotsa decomposition stuff and. sad

Death was never meant to be easy, of course.

It wasn’t the release many thought it to be; there wasn’t much one could truly do to escape this place, beyond ending the game in a victory or a failure. It wasn’t freedom in any sense of the word; it was binding. It was punishment, for making however many mistakes brought one to the point of death, for failure.

And it was cruel, Ray supposed, but so was everything here. And, he supposed, he had earned it.

Death was never thought to be merciful, at least not here.

Death, here, doesn’t necessarily spell the end. There’s no escape, no release, no act of a soul leaving its body, no act of shuffling off this mortal coil. The dead stay exactly where they are, in their body, as it rots or is destroyed right off the bat. 

Nobody had ever really explained that to Ray. Maybe he would have appreciated that, but he supposed it was somewhat inevitable.

He had a feeling ghosts were going to be a thing, they would still remain at least somewhat aware of the state of their mission after they’ve been taken out of the game, but this wasn’t what Ray was hoping for.

He was a ghost now, he supposed, but a better description was really just a semi-conscious corpse. 

He had made his mistakes, he could own those. He was still fairly new to this world, this type of game, and he had happened to catch several arrows in his stomach. He so happened to be alone, separated from the rest of his friends, and there was really no way for him to stop the bleeding.

He wasn't sure if he was still alive when Dean found him, if he was just barely on the brink of death or if he was already a ghost, trapped in his own body and being forced to watch from where he died; but he saw everything. 

It was dark in that cave, many of the torches having been snuffed out by the battle, but there was just enough light to see Dean’s face, and _ that alone _could have killed him, if he was not already bleeding out.

Dean was supposed to be the brave one, wasn’t he? The fearless, ever-hyped and always eager for their adventures, always a ball of energy, and seeing him _ honestly _ scared felt like a _ travesty. _ Not in the panicky way he often fell into, when he would start screaming for no reason, but _ broken. _

In that one moment, Dean was quiet.

Ray supposed he should start getting used to that face, but _ good lord, _ it felt like a bad omen and a half. He had wanted to comfort him _ so badly, _ just the tiniest bit of movement or even a gasp, some sign of life that could give him the tiniest amount of _ hope, _ but there was none. He was there, watching, but he couldn’t move. Or speak, or breathe, or apologize, or tell him that it was _ okay. _

Surely, it didn’t _ have _ to be like this, did it? Did it happen like this for everyone else? If this was a guest only type of thing, this type of _ death, _ he was gonna be _ so mad. _

But it wasn’t like he could do much to express his anger, at that point. 

He watched lifelessly as Dean pulled him into his arms, calling for help, dragging him all the way out of the mines and digging him a grave, the one that he now resided in.

When Ray focused enough, when he cleared his mind, if only for a moment, he could pretend that he was actually _ gone, _ the type of death that he would have strongly preferred. It was dark in this grave, staring up at several feet of dirt on top of him, that even despite his lack of a need to breathe and his separation from any feeling at all, it felt _ suffocating. _

It was dark, and not much else. He couldn’t move far from his body, if he tried _ really hard, _ maybe whatever remained of his hand _ (His hand? His soul? His hand’s… soul? Ghost hand, that was it) _ could pierce the surface, but that was it. 

And it wasn’t exactly _ feeling, _ as he couldn’t feel much of anything, but he could tell when his body was rotting. He felt it starting from the moment he died, from the moment he started staring blankly at the walls of that cave and everything else was stripped from him. It happened slowly, his organs shutting down one by one, his cells each dying off. When he was thrown in this grave, the blood he miraculously hadn’t yet lost sank within his body, and as he was buried, he could only just _ barely _withstand the weight. As time passed, as his body weakened and decayed, as the creatures of the earth gnawed at what little sustenance was left on his bones, he cracked beneath the weight. 

Still, even as his body was reduced to the dirt that buried him, there was no release, no closure. It came only with the knowledge that if he was dug up now, for one, they might have a hard time actually distinguishing his body from everything else, but most importantly- he couldn’t _ leave. _ Dean could come along, dig him up and carry around what was left of his body wherever his little heart desired, but Ray, _ himself, _would stay in that hole. 

There might have been a bit of comfort in that,_ peace, _ but it was just _ boring. _ It was dark, he could barely move enough to replicate some ghostly equivalent of pacing, and the most stimulation he ever got was one, the rotting of his body, and two, whatever footsteps, animal sounds or breezes he could strain to hear through all the layers of dirt. He would have preferred any other state of death to this, he _ could _ have been a ghost with free range of this world and that would have been _ sweet! _ He could have gone to some afterlife, start a new life as a creature of the Nether or just to go sit in a room with Todd for all eternity, but it would be _ something. _Actual death, actual numbness would have been preferable. 

But no, here he was. Rotting away, becoming the dirt, with the only thing actually worth _ watching _that was actually within his power to witness growing several feet above him. 

It was Dean, of _ course _it was, who planted a poppy on his grave. 

And now, at least, Ray got to watch the roots slowly unfurl. He couldn’t see the flower itself, any color other than dirt brown packed into pitch darkness was completely foreign to himself at this point; but the roots were something, at the very least.

They grew slowly, much slower than his actual decay. It was a small flower, he knew the roots would never actually sink deep enough to allow him to become a part of it, but it was something nonetheless. He’d give _ anything _ to have been buried in a grave just slightly more shallow, so that _ maybe _he’d have the chance of becoming that poppy and getting to watch from above ground, but no.

Dean always wanted the best for him, didn’t he? Maybe this kind of _ death _didn’t actually happen regularly. Maybe it was a guest thing, maybe it was this game in particular. He didn’t know, Ray was sure. 

They were just roots, the less than pleasant underbelly of something actually _ worthwhile, _Ray had to remind himself, but it still felt like so much more than that. They were something for him to look at; to watch as it grew, as he decayed and grew stagnant. They were something alive, in his new existence surrounded by nothing but dirt and the creatures feeding off his death. They were something that could change, to remind Ray that this world was still in action, still spinning, and that their adventure, wherever his friends were, wasn’t over. 

He hadn’t felt any motion in the graveyard for quite a while, although he couldn’t say he had much of a grip on time, outside of the growth of the roots. He hadn’t heard any new whispers, any screams, any eulogies, which was fairly comforting, albeit lonely. 

Often, in the absence of anything else to think about, his mind wandered back to Dean. Where he was, if he was holding up alright, where they were in terms of their goal, if he had planted any more flowers. He was alive, he really had to hope, or at least assume, given his idea of his surroundings. 

He missed them all, a lot. But he supposed he’d see them again, eventually.

Hopefully not in this same graveyard, in one next to his own, another thing for Ray to watch decay over an agonizingly long amount of time, but he supposed he’d take it over nothing. Maybe he’d be able to talk to them.

If it was Dean, which he desperately, _ desperately _hoped it wouldn’t be, maybe he’d be able to thank him. Tell him all the things he wanted to say, when Dean found him in the cave. 

Maybe someone else would carry on the tradition, planting another flower on his grave, and they’d be able to watch the roots grow together.

It was selfish, maybe, but that was the way of life and death.


	7. day 7/yandere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a whole got damn week of this oh god,,,
> 
> tw for. murder and badness and yandere stuff look with your eyes,,

This wasn’t exactly what Todd had in mind when he said he wanted a traitor for a season, but he supposed he couldn’t complain.

Breaking one’s mind wasn’t an easy feat; at least not always in the way it’s supposed to break. If it got the job Todd wanted done, he couldn’t complain, and he could just go ahead and wipe all their memories after this season was done, but  _ this _ was certainly telling. He had dabbled in the psychological tortures before, he’d subjected his players to quite a lot after all these years, but when it came to actively  _ changing  _ something in one’s brain, he could admit, he was somewhat of any amateur. 

That’s what he did, this season. He wanted a traitor, and it wasn’t like any of them would take that role  _ willingly. _

Except maybe for Jesse, but then  _ that  _ would just be too obvious.

Who better than the reckless, adventurous, loveably dumb  _ host  _ of this very game to take that role? Who would be any more unexpected?

It wasn’t a role Austin wanted to take at all; he objected to it for as long as he physically could before Todd subdued him. But Todd didn’t find it to be that big of a deal-  _ sure,  _ he might be screaming within the confines of his own mind and trapped within a body wired for violence whose actions he can’t control in the moment, but it’s not like he’ll  _ remember  _ after all this is done. 

Todd could admit, he did play with the idea of actually allowing them all to remember after all this was done, but only because the way he changed Austin was fascinatingly unexpected. 

He certainly wasn’t wiring Austin for rationality, but he wasn’t planning on Austin keeping his emotions, either. Or, well, only one or two emotions, and only for Jeff, it would seem.

But fascinatingly telling, nonetheless. He didn’t care about anyone else, not even his own brother, huh? 

He spared no one, and killed in the name of what he believed, or at least claimed to be Jeff’s protection. He wasn’t merciful in the way he killed either, seeming to take  _ joy  _ in it, another thing Todd hadn’t expected. Anything for Jeff, he supposed was Austin’s logic. He took as much time as he was allowed, in some of the most  _ violent  _ ways Todd could imagine to be possible, in ways that he wasn’t sure he could even do justice in words. 

Quite a show, it was.

And Austin did his job quite perfectly; when it came down to the two of them, when Jeff finally realized that  _ he  _ was the killer that had reduced all of his friends to nothing but  _ prey,  _ ripped apart viciously and animalistically; Todd was quite surprised by the violence Jeff showed in turn.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise Austin didn’t fight back much at all, given how Jeff was his sole, twisted motivation; but still, it was rather fascinating. Especially, relating to that, in how Jeff didn’t hold back in the slightest.

It was really a shame Todd had to wipe all their memories, as this was so much more fun than the regular seasons could ever be. But he had his data, he had made all his necessary notes, and he supposed he could do it all again if he so desired.

It was tempting, Todd had to admit. He had been meaning to study the repeats a bit more, in truth… 


	8. day 8/phobia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Autophobia- Fear of being alone or of oneself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these are,, progressively getting less gory and more sad oops,, I am trying my best fdsjhds
> 
> tw for uhh referenced death, trauma and anxiety stuff

"Don't go."

Austin couldn't help but notice that Jeff kept  _ repeating _ that, over and over again. When they first began this new adventure, Jeff had always been the one to make sure they all stuck together and were safe, but something was… different, this time. When Austin woke up in this world and saw Jeff again, for the first time in what felt like  _ eons  _ of death, he looked  _ shaken.  _ For no reason at all; it was bright and early, they were in a clearing that was completely safe, and they had just begun again, so they were all completely unharmed.

He wondered if Jeff was starting to question this…  _ system,  _ of theirs, but it seemed more like he was doubting himself.

Austin didn't  _ live,  _ exactly, to see what Jeff had been through for the end of last season, but whatever it was, it did  _ something  _ to him.

"Don't go," that's what he kept repeating. At the very beginning, whenever Austin implied the slightest intention of wandering off, which before, he did quite often. Out on the farm or while out hunting, when they went mining, even in the safety of his own home, it seemed that Jeff constantly needed someone to cling to; typically Austin, but he'd take what he could get, even if it made him look almost  _ pitiful. _

After a while, Austin started to think, or assume at least; it's not the danger itself that scares Jeff, but being  _ alone. _

When Austin would start to wander off, Jeff would tell him not to go, and either call him back or hurry up to return to his side. As he tended to the farm or went out to slaughter some pigs, he just  _ couldn't  _ be alone. The buddy system was one thing, but Austin started seeing  _ so much  _ of  _ himself  _ in the way Jeff reacted to being alone,  _ abandoned _ .

He'd attend to whatever he was doing, focusing mostly on that at first, until he realized everyone was just a little too far away. He'd freeze up for a moment, eyes widening and breath catching, and Austin swore he could _see _his pulse flare up beneath his skin. He'd take a moment, not quite able to move his body, but his eyes would flick back and forth, trying to figure out where everybody, _anybody _is. He'd try to suppress it, calm himself down, shutting his eyes tight and breathing deeply, but Austin could _see _it, which made him realize just how obvious of a tell it really was. His hands would start shaking, almost_ violently, _his eyes would well up for only a moment before biting them back, and he'd struggle to his feet, rushing in whatever direction he needed to go.

And he'd say it again, each a slightly different variation depending on the situation.  _ "Don't go." _

Maybe it was easier for Austin to pick up on because he saw  _ himself  _ in the way Jeff panicked, but he still struggled to believe that he was the  _ only  _ one seeing it. Even if he understood, he still wasn't sure exactly how he was supposed to approach him. Was he supposed to tell him, outright, that he saw what he was doing? Was he supposed to ask him what happened last season, whatever he had missed when he was dead, if anything was  _ because  _ he was dead, or would that just be reopening his wounds? He couldn't just leave Jeff alone, could he? Clearly, that treatment had never worked for him.

Austin supposed that this was yet another side effect of never getting any  _ actually decent  _ therapy for his anxiety; he was practically just as helpless as Jeff was. 

Although, there was one thing he tried to do, whenever he could.

When Jeff told him not to go, he didn't.


	9. day 9/sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another longer one, I really like this hee hee
> 
> tw for uhh death and torture and a lot of referenced badness

"Y'know, there are quite a lot of ways to get them all back."

Jeff shivered a bit when Todd said that, mainly due to the fact that the room _ itself, _ this strange, void like place buried inside of the mountain was awfully _ drafty, _for some reason. Todd just couldn't ever let him be comfortable, could he?

But, of course, it always had quite a bit to do with the fact that he wished he could be speaking to _ literally _ anyone else. Any of his friends, any of the guests, even any of the ones he didn't particularly like; a villager or even just an animal, _ fuck, _he just hated this. Todd was just a guy, sure, but he was the guy in charge, and he refused to make a single thing easier for Jeff. He took joy in watching them all suffer and die horribly, Jeff knew he did. 

But this was inevitable, he knew. There was no way he'd be able to even _ make it _ to the Ender Dragon now, now that he was alone again and with practically _ nothing. _ He considered himself an optimist, but he had failed again and again, when he had been in much better positions, and there was just _ no way. _

His only option now was Todd, in his stupid little mountain, with his stupid little _ trades_. Sacrifices, even.

If he could kill Todd, if he was really _ just a guy _and not the literal god of this world, capable of teleporting and flying and summoning lightning on command, Jeff absolutely would. No hesitation. 

"You may remember the Totem of Undying from a ways back? While the concept of being dead for good has always been the… _ appeal, _somewhat, here, I have always seen a bit of value in letting some things slide. Clearly, you all just can't manage your quests without it. And so, I've gathered a couple ways of bringing your friends back, each for a different price, which I hope will catch your eye."

Jeff huffed, half-wishing at this point that he had just thrown himself off this mountain rather than travel all the way down here and suffer all of Todd's monologuing, but… he had to do this. Completing these quests were their only real shots at happiness, at freedom, even though Todd would lie about their rewards quite often, even after they had won. 

A series of pedestals rose up before him, each the same void-black of the emptiness around them, each carrying a sign and a significant item.

Todd hummed in amusement as Jeff walked towards the first pedestal. A single diamond laid on top of it; not a real one, but some… hologram, thing, and the sign read, "15 Diamonds → One Life."

"Fifteen diamonds, or some equivalent," Todd added, just as grating as always. "I'll be happy to take any diamond armor or tools you have, even if they're badly damaged! I'm being quite generous with this one, but I'm afraid I'll only allow you this deal once."

Jeff sighed. Did he even have fifteen diamonds, total? He was pretty sure he had like, two. Had they ever, in any game, accomplished that? He _ wasn't _ going diamond mining for another several months, just to get all of those diamonds, just to give them all away. No way. Most likely scenario, he'd fall into some lava or get killed by a horde of zombies, maybe even lose his mind down in those mines, and all that effort will have been for nothing.

Oh well. He had options.

On the second pedestal sat a single bone, also not real, but Jeff wasn't really questioning it at that point. The sign read, “25 Wolves → One Life.”

_ Fuck off. _

Jeff moved on quickly to the next pedestal, eliciting a smug chuckle from Todd.

“Not even going to humor that one? Come on, you might need it.”

Jeff was too scared to actually say it, but he really wanted to tell Todd _ to eat shit and die. _ Maybe Todd was able to hear it regardless.

Upon the third pedestal sat a small handheld mirror, reflecting the empty void. The sign below it read, “One Life → One Life.”

_ … What? _

“Oh, for that one-” Todd mused, his voice not seeming to come from anywhere in particular in the room, but Jeff just _ knew _he was right behind him. “A life for a life, soul for a soul. Probably the fairest bargain of them all. Of course, the only life you’d have to bargain would be your own-”

“Not interested,” Jeff interrupted, staring blankly beyond the pedestal.

“Hey, I’m just trying to help you consider all your options. If there’s _ someone _you’re feeling particularly guilty about, maybe someone you’d prefer take your place…”

Jeff didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t care about who deserved what, each and every one of them had racked up plenty of guilt, he was sure. He cared quite a bit, in truth, but he wouldn’t let anyone take his place. He wouldn’t _ force _ anyone to take his place, becoming alone in this world with an insurmountable quest and surely, more and more guilt building up on top. Todd _ thrived _on guilt, Jeff had noticed.

He knew Todd was talking about Austin when he mentioned that _ certain someone, _ being this was… _ what, _ the _ fifth _ time he had watched Austin die? But _ fuck it, fuck no. _ He wouldn’t fall for this trick.

Wordlessly, holding his head up high, Jeff walked towards the fourth and final pedestal. Upon it sat a blade, plain but gleaming silver, with what seemed like flickering bloodstains as the image glitched, or _ whatever _ it was. The sign read, “A New World of Pain → One Life.”

… That seemed a little more fair, honestly. At first, at least.

“Now, let me tell you, this one is… infinitely redeemable, I’d like to say, although I’d probably have to cap it around ten for you. I know how determined you can be,” Todd chuckled, pacing around the pedestal, getting a good look at Jeff. “... I can see it's caught your attention.”

“... What exactly do you mean by _ a new world of pain?” _ Jeff asked, if it was even worth asking. He was sure, at this point, that he didn’t have much other choice. His other choice was mining for ages or breeding and slaughtering his dogs for several months, which… _ no. Just no. _

Maybe this was about what he deserved, in a way. He wouldn’t let anyone take his place, none of them deserved that. But for his friends… subjecting himself to _ what, a whole new world of pain _seemed like something that had always been something he was beyond willing to do. 

“Well, it’ll be different each time you choose to redeem it. It won’t be taking you to a new world or anything like that, and it won’t kill you, not for good at least, because otherwise you might have well have just chosen that other, painless option. But for each life you wish to revive, I’ll… Well, to be honest, I haven’t totally decided yet, but I do have a list,” Todd said, an excited, _ bubbly _quality to his voice, which didn’t reassure Jeff in the slightest. 

“I had… Let me think, _ several _tortures… Not like you’d be able to choose, but let’s say, being fed to the birds, starving and being pecked at incessantly, I always thought that one was a bit funny. Oh… something burning, a couple hundred volts, a couple near drownings, maybe I’d take a limb or an eye or something if I’m so inclined; I forget all the specifics, really, but you get the picture.”

Jeff set his jaw, hands balling into fists at his sides. He supposed, torturing him was what Todd already did, but… _ what did he say, burning, electrocuting, drowning and amputation, gouging and being left to rot… _

Jeff wasn’t sure who he was kidding, really. He’d seen it all, in this game, and even if Todd really was capable of some _ new world, _ fuck it, he’d do it anyway. If this is what he had to do, _ fuck it. _ He’d do anything for them, and if traumatized him for the rest of his many lives, well… so had the game, just normally.

Jeff took a deep breath, relaxing his hands.

“I’ll take five, please.”


	10. day 10/hanahaki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this one way in advance bc I had an idea for it dhgdf, so im very excited that todays the dayyy
> 
> tw for uhh death and ouchies and feelings,, its hanahaki time bro come on

Dean supposed he knew how this was going to go.

It always ends in death, doesn’t it? He’s won this game… twice, he believed? Twice, and that was all he was allowed. Every time, every new season, it always had to end the same way for him; in defeat.

That wasn’t so bad, really. It was an adventure, a journey, and it wasn’t nearly as lonely as what laid outside the server. He had made his choice, long ago, and he had no intention of leaving any time soon. 

But this was different. This was never  _ meant  _ to be a part of the game, which shouldn’t have surprised Dean, given how much Todd enjoyed torturing them, but  _ oh,  _ this was just  _ unfair.  _

He stood on the front porch of their home, staring out at the sunset over the land, the graveyard in his peripheral vision, tucked away to the left. It was always a pretty sight, Jeff and Luke were the ones who always paid special attention to the little details of their home, the aesthetics, the perfect placement. And as the sun set, pink and purple swirling in the sky as the stars slowly grew brighter, all Dean could stare at was the  _ red  _ of the sinking sun.

Red, the color of the sky. Red, the color of poppy petals.

Red, the color of the petals Dean had started coughing up, a couple weeks ago it would be now. It wasn’t all that long ago, not long at all, when he was doubled over behind a fencepost, trying to keep himself out of sight as those  _ damned  _ petals fell from his mouth. 

The poppy petals were already red; the rest fell cleanly, blue iris and purple lotus; he was pretty sure, anyway.

Not like he could ask Mcjones to help, despite the fact that  _ of course  _ he knew about it. Mcjones was the one who told him about this whole  _ phenomenon  _ in the first place,  _ Hanahaki disease, _ he called it, but he described it merely as some Japanese legend. A myth of schoolgirls, those who are so lovestruck that they vomit up flower petals and slowly suffocate. And Dean joked about it with him, told him that if he started hacking up flower petals anytime soon he’d know just who to go to, and Mcjones told him that  _ that  _ would be his problem alone.

But Dean couldn’t go to him now, could he? This was supposed to be nothing but a legend anyway, and Dean had been burying his increasingly bloodier petals in fear of having them found. Mcjones had told him that the only way to cure it was to confess to whoever one was in love with, that the disease was often mutual, and that there was a surgery to remove the petals, but it would cost the patients memory of whoever it was they were in love with, and it wasn’t like they’d have access to that all the way out here. Dean could get himself cut open and bled out on his own terms, there was really no need for a doctor. 

And again, that if gone untreated or unconfessed, those flower petals would fill up the poor lover’s lungs until they suffocated. Which wasn’t the way Dean wanted to go, not in the slightest, but he didn’t have much of a choice, did he?

Mcjones told him it was his problem alone, anyway. 

And as his disease went untreated, as the iris and lotus petals were dyed red as his coughing fits grew more and more painful, he was mercifully offered a moment of clarity. 

Staring at his pile of petals, in a puddle of blood, doubled over in the shadow of their home, he had a moment of acceptance. A moment of acceptance that he had found countless times before, in the inevitable arrival of death. 

This disease was going to kill him. Because there was no way of getting these petals out of his lungs, no one he could turn to, no surgical procedure that could save him. There was no way of confessing, he knew.

Because the longer he stared at the petals, soaked with blood, his eyes were drawn to the poppies. 

Red poppy petals. The color of blood, the color of blood, the color of the flower planted at one particular grave, to the left of their home. The color that would kill him.

He couldn’t exactly confess to Ray, could he?

He had tried, late in the night, brought to his knees by another coughing fit and reduced to a gasping, sobbing,  _ selfish  _ mess over his grave, and it didn’t seem like that cured him. There was no way of curing himself, if there was no one to confess to, if the love he was struck by was that of a dead man’s, realized much too late.

There was no way Dean could even know if Ray felt-  _ used to feel-  _ the same way, unless he dug up his body and found flowers sprouting from his chest, but  _ God,  _ the concept alone made him feel sick. 

There was no way of curing this, was there? No way of surviving this, as was his fate with every season now, it would seem. It sucked mega balls, but this was just the way it had to be.

And the others didn’t have to know. Like Mcjones said, this was his problem alone. Dean didn’t want to die to this disease, and there were countless, more productive, much less  _ pathetic  _ ways of going out. 

He was thinking he’d get himself blown up by a creeper, or maybe he’d leave himself to the wrath of an Enderman, yet again. Something like that. They didn’t have to know. They didn’t have to know of his disease, of his curse, and they didn’t have to mourn him with any lingering paranoia, nor any resentment. And Dean really didn’t need the necrophilia jokes he just  _ knew  _ would spring up. 

He didn’t want to look Mcjones in the eyes, and say that he was dying to this disease, because there were just  _ so  _ many deeply buried emotions in that head of his, an ocean of petals deeper than Dean could ever fathom, let alone understand. And he didn’t want to see the disbelief, the doubt, the anger, the resentment, the  _ guilt  _ that Dean could already see written onto Mcjones’ face. Dean had been burying his petals, just like how they buried Ray, just like how he buried his emotions. It was a miracle he’d figured out it was Ray at all. 

They didn’t have to know. When they came back around, nobody did, not the new guests, not even Ray, unless this stupid disease carried over, which Dean would fist-fight Todd for without hesitation. Nobody had to know, and Dean didn’t have to die to this. 

He stared at the sun, feeling another bout coming on as the fluttering discomfort in his chest turned to a storm, and he let out a breath choked by death. 

This was going to kill him soon, if he didn’t get himself killed first. It would be night soon, and they’d go hunting for Endermen, and there, he’d have his choice. 

He’d accepted it, too. If dying to this would make him a pathetic, lovestruck, tragically beautiful equivalent of a high schooler, he’d pick the death of a fallen traveller, a warrior, without hesitation. This disease would die along with him,  _ so help me Todd.  _

All he could do was bury his blood soaked petals once more, wipe his hands onto his shirt, and pray that he’ll be struck down by whatever monster that ends up killing him without having any more petals forced out, for everyone to see. 

This was his problem, alone. His choice. His love, that he could never truly choose not to bury, but he could beat it out with honor. 

He wondered which side of the graveyard he’d be buried on, if he’d be next to Ray. Maybe that would truly cure him.

\---

Red poppy petals, blue iris, purple lotus.

Mcjones knew each petal well, had memorized their families, but the true  _ meaning  _ evaded him.

He knew what it was; Hanahaki disease, cut and dry. He was beyond caring that the disease was meant to be nothing but a legend, he just didn’t understand  _ why. _

He liked to keep his feelings buried, so he supposed this was karma in a way; the universe’s idea of irony, retribution, but this seemed just a tad bit  _ cruel.  _

The thing with this disease was that there was meant to be some distant concept of  _ hope,  _ pushing one towards confession and resolution of feelings; but like Mcjones’ feelings, like the very petals Mcjones disposed of outside-

Dean was dead and buried. Who else could it be but him? 

And so, that didn’t leave Mcjones with much; other than the notion that this was going to kill him.

Which, at the very least, he could accept. 


	11. day 11/doll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the prompt was doll/puppet but I went all in on the doll oops,,, I make todd so mean in all of these I don't know why but it is fun.... also oh no this is over 10k words now
> 
> tw for uhh,, body horror I guess? referenced ouchies? self hatred kinda? idk whats going on in this one

"I designed you, just for this."

Dean clenched his jaw, feeling his teeth scrape against each other somewhat painfully, feeling the  _ fragility _ . It took a lot of effort to keep his hands idly at his sides, not balled into fists, not barreling into Todd, as much as he wanted to.

It would break him, he knew. Here, he wasn't human. 

"Try to remember that, will you? I designed- I  _ made  _ you, just for this purpose. You are quite my perfect being."

Dean closed his eyes, but light still poured in through his eyelids, thin like paper. His eyelashes scratched his cheeks. He kept paying attention to his hands, moving each finger slowly in sequence, examining each joint and feeling the _creak._ He didn't feel much, truly, not in this state. Not pain, or anything like that, but he was painfully aware of his…  _ existence,  _ in that moment.

Through the shadows flickering in what remained of Dean's vision, he knew Todd was pacing around him. Dean hated this stupid _dollhouse_ more than he could possibly say, so much to scream about that his fragile voice would probably shatter and stab him through the throat, but he had no choice but to be silenced, here. Standing alone in the center of the room, surrounded by trinkets and dolls just like _him_ as Todd watched him like a contemplative and indecisively violent nine year old, he felt as if he was going to be broken again.

"You're my perfect creation, and I expect you to  _ act  _ perfectly. I expect you to  _ be  _ perfect."

Dean flinched at the sharpness of Todd's words, like shards of porcelain digging into his skin; back when he had actual flesh, anyway.

Here,  _ now,  _ he was all porcelain, and he hated it. Todd had an  _ incredibly _ fucked up sense of perfection, but that was no surprise.

But still, he couldn't voice that. So vividly, in his mind that was supposedly created and  _ perfected  _ by the predator stalking around him, he saw himself broken again. Cracks in his skin, exposing the hollowness of his limbs, breaking open his chest and finding organs so intricate,  _ fragile,  _ Dean  _ hated  _ existing in this state. He was made for Todd's little game, for Todd's enjoyment and for the further enrichment of his players, and that was the only place he could  _ exist  _ without being scared of shattering.

And even so, it was still a violent place. Where the blood he currently lacked could flow freely, where death was permanent; at least for the season. Still, he preferred feeling nothing in death and being doomed to repeat the same quests over being picked up and glued back together, alone with Todd, feeling every_ second_ of it. 

The rest of them; Todd's players, Dean's_ friends,_ didn't even  _ know.  _ They  _ couldn't _ know. He existed for enrichment, for quite literally fun and games, but he couldn't be honest with them like his friends could with each other. He couldn't get as close to them as he would have liked.

He wasn't supposed to, anyway.

"I'm sorry," Dean murmured, quiet and fragile as glass, the opposite of everything he tried to be. 

"Don't be sorry,  _ do  _ better. It took me  _ so long  _ to get you the way you are now, Dean, you know that? Took me two weeks just to paint your face. Three to get all your joints in order. Sewing all your outfits, it's painstaking! I expect just a bit of effort in return, alright?”

Something chipped in Dean’s mouth; probably a tooth, or a shard off the roof of his mouth. He swallowed it, nodding.

“You don’t want to get  _ broken  _ again, do you?”

He couldn’t feel much when he was like this, but there was a sense of  _ crawling  _ over his entire body when Todd said that, and the memory made his heart ache.

“No.”

“So, what are you going to do differently this time?”

“I’ll… I’ll be there for their entertainment, and y- _ yours, _ but I won’t get…  _ so  _ close. I won’t try to make it all about me again. I’m… I’ll stay away from Mcjones, especially. I know I’m there for them, but they’re… they’re not there for me.”

The feeling gathered behind Dean’s eyes, but he knew he couldn’t cry here. Couldn’t in this scenario, and couldn’t _physically,_ as his eyes were merely marbles in his head, perpetually dry on the outside.

“And I am yours. Before I am… I am myself, I am their playmate, and I am your…”

“My doll.”

Dean opened his eyes at the sound of Todd’s footsteps, approaching him.

“Good. I don’t like seeing you broken, you know that.”

That was simply a lie, so obvious it physically pained Dean being unable to contest it. Todd smirked, sprawling across his face like nails on a chalkboard, noticing what must have been a smudge on Dean’s cheek and wiping it off. He looked at Dean, satisfied, and Dean felt more fragile than he had ever been, even shattered.

“Perfect.”


	12. day 12/pastel gore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a weird prompt to translate into writing fhgdfk,, hope it is okay mwah
> 
> tw for gore imagine that,, also just.. yeah death, self hatred and just sum psychological fuckery

Austin wasn’t always like this, was he?

Life in this world, perpetually trying to conquer these quests of theirs, it wasn’t always so…  _ flashy. _ Bubbly, glittery,  _ beautiful. _

Austin was vaguely aware of some voice in the back of his mind, that screamed and kicked at its cage, that something was very,  _ very _ wrong, and he needed to stop everything he was doing. Maybe that voice was the old him, or maybe the _ real _ him.

But whoever he was now was blinded by the shining lights, the pretty colors, all the  _ beauty  _ that surrounded him that he was only now able to see.

The sky wasn’t always bubblegum pink, was it? 

The grass wasn’t always so soft, rustling with every breeze, a mint green that complimented the sky. The trees weren’t always so grand and smooth, so huggable, and the leaves weren’t always so perfectly heart shaped, pastel colors that still felt _ brilliant _ to Austin.

The sun was surprisingly easy to stare at, and the moon always seemed to smile at him. And the stars;  _ oh God, the stars, _ they were brighter than ever before. The night sky was a rainbow, each color blending into each other like watercolors, never growing muddy or too dark, and every star shined so brightly that they burned into Austin’s vision, spelled out messages, seemed to  _ speak _ to him.

Whenever he pointed it out to the others, they never seemed to know what he was talking about. 

He wondered briefly if Todd had stuck him with some drugs before starting this season, but they showed no sign of wearing off this far into the game. And he _ knew  _ this was so much more than that, so much more than the product of some psychedelics or even just brain damage, because the stars really  _ did  _ speak to him.

And the others;  _ oh, the others. _

They were the prettiest part of this world by far. 

He couldn’t help but notice them, stare at them whenever they weren’t looking. In Jeff, there were those same stars twinkling in his eyes and dotted across his cheeks. In Dean, there was an incredible, incredibly  _ strange _ sense of  _ purity _ in his smile, those same watercolors whenever his face went red from yelling. The light reflecting off his glasses twinkled like those stars, as did Barry’s, and Austin couldn’t really place it or explain it properly, but the quality of Barry’s voice was a soft baby blue.

Austin had no idea what that meant, what  _ any _ of this did. But he did know he had grown an eye for shiny things, acquired a taste for cotton candy colors, and either found or was  _ given _ the mindset to truly appreciate it.

He did appreciate it, truly; especially when he looked down at himself, all he saw was  _ awful. _ All he saw was dirt brown and darkness, rot and plain  _ garbage, _ that he just couldn’t stand. No matter how hard he tried to fix himself, covering himself in heart shaped leaves and bathing in the sparkling rivers that nearly blinded him, it never worked. 

So badly, he wanted to be like the others. See himself like he did them. 

But he had learned fairly early on, in one of their countless scuffles with monsters, those of which who were still drenched in a cutesy glare that Austin envied stronger than he could say, the others bled a glittery bubblegum pink.

Not him though. He was just as red as always, even taking on the consistency and color of ink when he stared for too long, waiting for himself to become prettier. 

And iron swords too; they glittered.

Austin couldn’t say much about his own mentality; he knew the voice in the back of his head didn’t like it, and he couldn’t even be sure about the version of his himself that was in charge. He didn’t see himself as particularly violent; maybe envious, but not with any _ ill will,  _ and he didn’t see the change in himself other than that of his surroundings.

Until, of course, he found himself coated in glittery bubblegum pink, covering up the disgusting, dark green and black wreck that was his hands. 

And suddenly, he was pretty.

As was Dean, lying there in the grass with him, the watercolor painting his skin with pretty purples and blues, the light sparkling off his broken lenses and broken bones, the iron sword that cut through him now coated in that same substance. 

And God, it was beautiful. For once, he felt beautiful; and surely, Dean did too. 

He wouldn’t stay pretty forever, though. He needed more of  _ this.  _


	13. day 13/cannibalism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy this was a fun prompt,, im sorry in advance dfhgdfs
> 
> tw for.. what do you think

Jeff was pretty sure he was losing his mind down here.

Not even “pretty sure,” not even a question; he knew he was. 

It had been… a week, now? Could have been less, or so much more; wasn’t like he could tell by the day cycles. All he had to go off of was whenever he was hungry, which was… always, really.

A week-ish now, he had been trapped down here in this mineshaft. His memory of the incident itself was failing, another sign of him losing his mind, he was sure; but the entrance to the mineshaft… collapsed, at some point, and they ended up cornered by a horde of zombies, skeletons and cave spiders. 

And now, here he was, trapped in this mineshaft. All of his tools were nearly broken when he first came down here, which was stupid enough, but now he had practically nothing to work with. Not practically, nothing. The wood frames found frequently throughout the mineshaft were fragile, as he had learned, and any of the tools he tried to create with them broke almost instantly. He had attempted to dig up to the surface, but he was only able to get so far, and now it seemed that his only reasonable option left in that pursuit was to break through all the stone with his bare hands.

Which, at least he had enough sanity left to know, was not ideal. There was already a lot of him that was broken; A couple ribs, an ankle that was at least sprained, his mind, his heart; he didn’t need to destroy his hands too.

Here he was, trapped in this stupid, structurally inept and pointless mineshaft, alone.

Because a horde of zombies, skeletons and cave spiders has never been easy to fight off, especially not cornered. Especially not while panicking.

The remains of the fight littered the floor, everywhere Jeff went. Bones, heaps of rotten flesh melted and stuck to the stone floor, squished spider’s eyes and blood that would never quite dry. He kept the remains of his friends as far as he could from them, by the collapsed entrance, but here wasn’t that much he could really do. Already, it was getting hard to distinguish them from the monsters.

Maybe that’s when Jeff really started losing his mind; when he started seeing them, when he  _ knew _ that they were the same. They were, weren't they? As their blood congealed and their skin began to slip, eyes sinking in and slowly becoming a part of the earth again with every passing second, they were no different from the monsters that took their lives. They held the same value, were equal to the forces that decomposed them and the impatient nature of death.

That scared Jeff. That they weren't any different, that they were equal in the eyes of fate. Maybe those very zombies and skeletons were once human; maybe there really was nothing at all separating them. Maybe there never was anything at all.

And that idea scared Jeff, because he had been forced into the position of eating rotten flesh a couple of times over the years; more often than he'd like to think about, now. 

Because again, he was reaching that point.

They hadn't brought much food down; that was an oversight on their part, but they were never planning on staying down for longer than a couple hours. There was meant to be bread and apples stashed in the minecart chests every so often in this place, but Jeff had already ransacked all he could, and he was much too scared to stray too far from this little hub of his, surrounded by the monsters he had slain and the decay of his friends. The entrance that now trapped him here, the place where he had half resigned himself to. 

But that other half of himself was still kicking, fighting for whatever shred of survival instinct he had managed to hold onto; and it told him  _ come on, it's just rotten flesh. _

Rotten flesh he had been reduced to eating countless times before, tearing the chewy flesh apart with his teeth and feeling the nausea and  _ hunger  _ set in almost immediately, but every time, he knew he had to eat something. It was the  _ worst,  _ but he had to stay alive, and he had to eat it. 

Now, he wasn't sure if he could bring himself to eat much of anything, even if he had access to it. His stomach churned just looking at them, he felt like he was going to be sick just thinking about it, imagining it, and a good portion of himself couldn't even be bothered with staying alive anymore. 

But that other part of him, however detached and irrational it may have been, spoke to him again;_ it's just rotten flesh._ It's just rotten flesh, _come on. _

And as his food supply ran dry, and even the flesh he could tear off the zombies began to dwindle, Jeff started to realize that he was running out of other options. Other than dying, anyway. 

Maybe that's when he really lost his mind; when he started genuinely considering it, when he began to accept for himself that this was what he was going to have to do if he wanted to survive, that it was  _ just _ rotten flesh, an act he had taken countless times before. 

Jeff felt just as detached from his own body as that very voice that pleaded for his survival. It didn't feel like he was in control when he pulled himself up off the cold stone, dragging his bones across the room toward the entrance, where the remains of his friends laid idly decomposing. 

That sentence repeated in his head over and over again,  _ it's just rotten flesh.  _ When he took in the sight of their decay, the flesh growing dark and damaged, he told himself it's just rotten flesh. When he looked at them and tried not to look at their face, the moment of their deaths frozen in their expression, and when be tried to forget that they were his  _ friends,  _ he told himself, _ it's just rotten flesh. _ When he dug his nails into their flesh and it  _ peeled,  _ when he held it in his hands and suddenly felt so much  _ hungrier,  _ he  _ knew,  _ it  _ was  _ just rotten flesh.

It was. The nausea hit, and the hunger came back, and  _ he  _ kept coming back for more. Until there was nothing left but bloody skeletons, hauntingly familiar.

It was just rotten flesh, after all.


	14. day 14/decapitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is shorter :( also another weird kinda prompt to work with but I tried
> 
> can you guess the tws huh.. it is murder time

Killing really wasn't as hard as the Austin from two weeks and four murders ago made it out to be.

It was kind of funny now; he remembered how much he tried to fight it, struggling within his own mind, with the goal that Todd had generously given him. He was never the violent type, sure, but it was funny now how feverishly against the concept he was.

Now here he was, with a waterfall's worth of blood on his hands, and it wasn't so bad at all.

He supposed the thing that held him back in the beginning was wanting to protect his friends. Caring about them, not wanting to hurt them, their safety, not even considering how bloody each encounter would be, how  _ fun _ fighting with them was. He was protecting them in a way; they never had much of a chance in this world, anyway. He had his fun, but at the end of the day, he was merciful. 

And, like Todd told him, they wouldn't remember all of this. Neither would Austin, presumably. He wasn't going to become some  _ monster  _ if he had no memory of what made him into one, right? Of course not. 

It was him or them at the end of the day. Either he spared them, or Todd tortured him endlessly, for the rest of this season, until he did to himself what he failed to do for the others, like a coward. Once that rubber band in Austin's head had snapped, the stubborn one that was naively attached and scared of hurting his friends, the one that tied him to his emotions and would have held him down until his death if Todd hadn't broken it; it wasn't hard to do at all.

When Austin fought, that deep emotional contemplation and his struggle with morality was wiped completely from his mind. When he fought, that was the only time he felt like he could really think, could live and  _ act  _ without feeling so tangled up by it all.

When Austin fought, he felt more powerful than he had ever felt,  _ ever, _ in any season, in any game. So often in this place, he felt helpless,  _ useless,  _ carried along limply by his friends and taken straight to his inevitable death, but  _ here _ , he was in control. When he fought, he could actually make a difference in this world, and it was a merciful one.

When he fought, Austin felt  _ alive.  _

And he had never really considered the possibility that it was not him, but  _ Todd  _ living inside of him, but he didn't care. It felt too  _ good  _ to care. This was the only time he had  _ ever  _ felt strong, and he  _ needed it. _

The clink of iron made him feel alive. When sparks flew, when armor was dented, when weapons chipped and stuck together, he felt so  _ powerful. _

When they screamed, pleading for their lives and for the  _ old Austin,  _ when they  _ cried,  _ Austin could never get enough.

When he stood over them, axe in hand, nowhere near unscathed by the battle but still feeling  _ invincible _ , he felt powerful. When they collapsed, laying on the ground and staring up at Austin,  _ defeated,  _ Austin smiled at them. 

And when he swung his axe at their neck with all his might, chopping right through into the dirt, Austin felt  _ proud _ .

He kept their heads; they made him feel like he was in control, like he was stronger than he really was, like  _ Todd. _


	15. day 15/stitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short and soft don't ask me how this keeps happening fdghv
> 
> also,, halfway through the month already oh no

“Okay, just hold still.”

Dean hissed through his teeth, not even wanting to look at his arm, the massive amounts of fuckery he had managed to put himself through. He wasn’t making this easy for Mcjones, he knew, but  _ come on,  _ what else was he meant to do? This shit hurt like hell. 

Mcjones worked with just as much reluctance as Dean, sliding the needle through each edge of the gash on Dean’s arm, a bloodied washcloth within arm’s reach for the cleanup that would surely be needed in due time. 

“That’s it. You’re doing great, okay?” Mcjones said, his tone betraying his message, reflecting the hesitation and hatred of the task itself as he pulled the first stitch tight, mentally preparing himself to puncture again.

“Fuck off,” Dean blurted out, and it wasn’t exactly what he meant, but  _ come on.  _ Mcjones had no idea how  _ badly  _ this hurt, did he? Did he even clean that needle? He supposed getting stabbed would produce the feeling, but it stung like a thousand ghast explosions every time Mcjones pulled the thread, and really, he would have preferred dying to that pigman at this point. 

“Can’t, sorry. Needs to be done,” Mcjones sighed, suffering through the work just as Dean was. Dean wondered if he could have just cauterized his wound on some of the hellfire down here, but he supposed that might have just burned him and made everything worse. How shocking.

Dean did trust Mcjones. He knew what he was doing a solid  _ most  _ of the time, and he had fixed up Dean like this countless times before. Just not in the literal _nether,_ and maybe Dean had managed to forget the pain every single time that came before, but this  _ hurt _ so much worse. 

Dean felt each puncture in excruciating detail, each pull of the thread and every time Mcjones hesitated, painful for a  _ different  _ reason that Dean wouldn’t bother looking into at that moment. Dean got hurt incredibly often, rarely to this degree, but  _ still,  _ he wasn’t sure if he had any right to complain. Mcjones was doing his best, he knew, but  _ fuck,  _ it still hurt. 

“Here I was, thinking you were just going to leave me for dead out here,” Dean bit, something produced in his pain-caused delirium that he didn’t really mean, but was still enough to make him smile for the moment, albeit bitter.

“Of course not,” Mcjones shut him down, punctuating his words with another, hasty seeming stitch, pulling the thread tightly and drawing another his out of Dean, sending the hellfire scorching from his arm to every other inch of his body. 

“Maybe I would have been better off, given the job you’re doing,” Dean said, and he really didn’t know why he was being so mean, other than the fact that everything hurt and he hated this, he supposed.

Mcjones threaded another stitch, mercilessly.

“Of course not,” Mcjones huffed, finishing what Dean quickly realized was his last stitch, tying up the thread at the end and cutting it from the needle. Mcjones sat back to admire his work, and even though it wasn’t exactly  _ perfect,  _ he knew it would do the job. He wished he could have done better, but what was he meant to do, really?

Dean would do the same for him, he knew. Worse, certainly, but that was something worth appreciating at the very least. 


	16. day 16/glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> luke sweetie im so sorry-
> 
> also these have been a lot shorter lately sad,, oh well
> 
> uhhh glass ouchies again basically hdfshd watch out

Maybe carrying around all that glass really  _ wasn't  _ Luke's brightest idea. 

Especially not in the caves; it was never really intended to be useful, he knew that perfectly well, but he just… liked holding onto it. He had melted the sand himself, he liked the way it sparkled in the light sometimes, and you never know when you're gonna need a window. He just liked it, there wasn't any more thought put into it than that. Maybe it was pride, or simply the appreciation of shiny, pretty things.

In all of that contemplation, in all of the time he had to think while carrying it all around, he had never thought to consider that glass  _ breaks.  _ He liked to think the glass he tempered was tough, and truly, it was.

Just not so much, up against a creeper explosion. 

He saw the creeper coming, tried to raise his shield, but the explosion hit him at an angle that threw him to the ground, hitting his head against the stone wall, and breaking more than just his glass. 

With his back against the stone, he was awfully scared to move. Everything  _ hurt,  _ the shock wave always does its damage and Luke wouldn't be surprised at all if he had any broken ribs, or even a concussion, but the  _ sound  _ hurt more. The implications of it scared him more than anything else.

He heard it all shatter, but the explosion took out the torches, and he had no idea where it all was. 

Except for the shards embedded into his skin, gashing the flesh where it didn't stick. He could just  _ feel  _ the cuts and the debris embedded in his calves, his arms; nothing had stabbed him per se, he hoped, but his chest was bleeding, and there was… something wet, for some reason, on his face.

There was still a bit of light coming in from the entrance to this tunnel, just enough to wave his hand in front of his face and know that he hadn't gone blind.  _ Not a Dean move, at least.  _

But he couldn't move. He couldn't talk without coughing, he couldn't  _ yell  _ at all, and he had no idea where the others were. Maybe they had heard the explosion, but he really had no idea.

And if they did come for him, it wouldn't be safe for them, would it? Maybe Luke got lucky with the glass cuts he got, he could have put his eye out or ripped open his throat, but he still couldn't move without finding himself right on top of however much glass surrounded him, or discovering new cuts that he hadn't even noticed yet. He couldn't move to make a torch, couldn't protect himself from any more monsters should they arrive, unless they're equally averse to broken glass, which was possible, he supposed. 

But here, he was stuck, like sand in a furnace, forced into becoming something completely new.

What would that be, an idiot into a corpse?

An idiot he was, and that was all Luke really knew.

From somewhere, Luke couldn't even identify where, he heard the sound of crunching, breaking glass. 

And a fuse being lit.


	17. day 17/shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one is really short im sad 😔😔😔 another weird prompt for fic gdfhs but I tried,,,
> 
> tw for uhh ouchies implied death I guess... cmon bro

Jeff couldn't say that he was thinking particularly clearly, but there was one thing he knew for sure, repeated again and again in his mind; that this was his only shot.

He stumbled, forcing himself to remain upright, clutching a gash along his side. The dragon's tail could  _ really  _ do some damage, he had learned. The End had never been easy, and for so long it had seemed  _ completely  _ out of his reach; with its towering pillars guarding the dragon's crystals that were incredibly dangerous, and certainly not well paired with Jeff's growing fear of falling. As well as the Endermen  _ infesting  _ the entire island, the mobs that had killed  _ so many _ of his friends in the past, and of course, the dragon herself. 

But for once, somehow,  _ miraculously,  _ Jeff had survived so far, and he was  _ so close.  _

He couldn't say for sure exactly how long he had been here, could have been minutes or  _ hours,  _ but he just  _ knew,  _ he was close. The crystals had come down, not without several near death experiences, narrowly escaped, and certainly not without angering many, many hordes of Endermen, but he was making  _ progress.  _ He had actually  _ hit  _ the dragon, in a way that  _ mattered,  _ which wasn't something he could really say before. 

And she had hit him back, of course. Seeing as she was  _ so close  _ to going down, as was he. 

_ One shot,  _ his only one, that was all Jeff needed. He had  _ almost  _ taken her down in the center of the island, but she flew off again right before Jeff could finish her off, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could last either. The split in his side, the Endermen constantly after him, the dragon's breath she had spewed that still hung low to the ground, onto Jeff's clothes, inside of his chest- Jeff didn't know exactly how long he had, but it probably wasn't long at all.

One shot, that was all he needed. He couldn't breathe, could barely stand, but he  _ needed  _ to do something. 

He drew his bow, raising it to the sky, praying that no Endermen were going to attack him from behind. It was hard to make out exactly where she was against the void-like sky, Jeff's vision was already blurring and losing focus, but he didn't have time to wait and recover.

He aimed where he thought she was, at least, and shot his arrow.

Considering that nothing seemed to happen, he probably missed. 

And before he knew it, it had become impossible to stand, his vision fading, his lungs giving out. Soon enough, the dragon was back to make sure she had really won this battle, and the Endermen were back to desecrate his corpse, or do whatever they did. 

He knew that he had had his one, only, and last shot, and that he missed. But he did his best, at the very least.

And he was sure that he'd be back next time; he didn't have much of a choice, did he?


	18. day 18/bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is just cute im not sorry hgfdghdfs,, also a bit short again but I really like it so :^)

"Oh- Hey, whatcha got for me, buddy?"

Jeff grinned at the wolf rubbing up against his legs, headbutting him gently and _ woof- _ing with something obviously in her mouth. Jeff ran his hands through her thick fur, checking her collar just to be sure who it was- cactus green, he had named this one Eve. 

He squatted down next to her, repositioning to get in front of her, scratching her ears and her chin generously before even bothering to look at whatever she had plopped down on the ground in front of her. She _ awooo- _ed a bit more, clearly happy to be receiving the pets, but much more interested in Jeff's reaction to her gift, slapping it with her paw to get him to notice. 

He looked down to find… well, some bone. That's what wolves did, it didn't surprise him in the slightest. It looked like a femur, or something like that? Jeff couldn't remember most of his anatomy, but she had probably just found it lying around somewhere, or maybe even nabbed it from a skeleton herself. She had a nose for those kinds of things, obviously, and Jeff was maybe a bit _ irrationally _proud of her. 

His dogs were all he had, at this point. Eve, Olivia, Jennie, Pancake, and all of the puppies he hadn't even named yet, he loved them more… than anything, in the most literal sense. Jeff had kind of run out of other things to love, and he had a lot of heartbreak to get over, with them as his only outlet. 

He shook his head, trying to get rid of the thought that he _ used _to have more than this, more than this lonely, crazy-wolf-lady lifestyle, barely even making progress on his quest, the reason he was here in the first place. 

"Oooh," Jeff purred, picking up the probably-femur and examining it, finding it stained and incredibly dirty- probably buried at some point. "Nice find. Is this for me?"

Eve woofed and snatched the bone right of out Jeff's hands with her teeth, padding off in the other direction, just slow enough for Jeff to tell that she wasn't running away or wanting to play, he was supposed to _ follow _her. 

"... Oh," Jeff snickered, shaking his head as he followed Eve, holding the bone in her mouth up high as she trotted along across their land. Past the farm Jeff had been checking on in the first place, past the house. He thought Eve might be taking him into the small cave nearby, where skeletons were probably most likely to be found, but Eve passed right by it.

Into the forest, a path marked by patted down dirt and white flowers Jeff had planted especially for this. Jeff was getting… _ really _nervous, he had to admit. He was just thinking about his friends, how he was raising his wolves in an attempt to heal, but…

If Eve was taking him back to the graveyard, he really didn't think he was ready for that. 

This path only led one way, so Jeff had all the reason to be concerned, lagging a bit further behind her. He was waiting anxiously for her to take a sharp turn off the path, showing him where she stashed all her bones in the brush, but once the graves came into view, Jeff knew this was hopeless.

He knew he should have turned around, shouldn't have followed her in the first place; what did she know, she was just a _ wolf. _ But there he found himself, in front of their graves once more, this very place where he had stood alongside his friends who mourned in tandem, and then where he mourned _ them, _ where he had broken down sobbing and slept in the dirt because he couldn't bring himself to leave. Where his friends were buried, by all means, a _ sacred _place.

A sacred place, desecrated. 

Jeff knew as soon as Eve started rubbing against his legs again, demanding his attention, the smell of fresh dirt and _ decay _ was almost overwhelming. The _ holes _ in their graves were very, _ very _new, hastily dug up and clearly done with paws, oblivious to all of the effort Jeff had put in trying to pat down all of their dirt, the flowers he had planted on each of their graves, even the headstones were vandalized with the reckless spray of dirt and blades of grass. 

There was Olivia, running in between the headstones like it was an obstacle course. There was Jennie, kicking some dirt _ back _into the hole in Lucah's grave, like she was trying to cover up what she had done. There was Pancake, chewing on…

Chewing on _ someone's arm. _

Eve trotted ahead, holding her head up high with pride, and dropped the bone back into Barry's grave. 

Jeff couldn't find it in himself to scold her, _ any _ of them. The words _ bad dog _couldn't make it onto his tongue, not even past his throat, and all he could do was sit down in the spot where he had broken down many times before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied about it being cute youre on per-ANKED


	19. day 19/infection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this ones kinda loose with the prompt rip but. I tried
> 
> tw for big ouchies kinda bordering on body horror watch out bro

“Okay, Jeff, just- Just hold still,” Austin panted, trying his hardest to swallow down anxiety bubbling up in his chest, the tears stinging at his eyes. 

This space was cramped, making it difficult for Austin to breathe, and almost certainly making it harder for Jeff. They were safe, technically, the zombies and skeletons crawling outside of the wall Austin had hastily thrown up were kept out, at least for the moment. But in this tiny space, their only source of light was a single, almost burned out and smoking torch, and the air was already heavy enough down here. Suffocating on smoke was really the least of their worries, but it was yet another thing that made it painfully clear to them both that they couldn’t stay here. 

Jeff sucked in a breath, bordering on hyperventilating and struggling to suppress his own cries of pain, for whoever that benefited. Comforting the injured really wasn’t Austin’s strong suit; if he  _ had  _ a strong suit at all. He was usually the only being injured, if anything, or fretting over the wounded while somebody actually  _ competent  _ tended to them. 

But here in this cramped hideout, Austin was completely alone with Jeff, and practically helpless. He was never good at this, he was never good with handling heavy injuries, as ironic as that was, and definitely not when they were  _ Jeff’s.  _ He was good at caring, good at panicking and reaching the point of tears whenever someone got hurt, but he never mastered the art of caring  _ for.  _ And he was an idiot for it, he knew.

His brother was always good at this stuff, but… he was still out there with the monsters, which was only another ache building on top of Austin and rendering him completely useless. Jeff was too, but it wasn’t like he could do it for himself, not when it was  _ this  _ bad.

The zombie bite on Jeff’s forearm was unlike anything Austin had ever seen before, not even in those… zombie lands, whatever they were called, that they visited twice. Jeff held it close to his chest, hissing through his teeth, clearly aware even from the low torchlight that it was  _ bad.  _ The skin seemed to be decaying, hardly even bleeding but  _ burning  _ through, the skin peeling away to reveal the muscle. And surely, soon, the muscle to the bone, sizzling and bubbling like it had acid poured on it, like it was invested with hundreds of tiny bugs just  _ aching  _ to be free.

Austin couldn’t disprove that. He thought he might have seen a maggot, but he could barely keep his thoughts straight. 

The skin shriveling around it was discolored, green and bruise violet, some vague gross-ness oozing from the center and each tooth mark, and Austin honestly just  _ couldn’t tell  _ if was growing or if he was just seeing things.

He really did try to help Jeff, but he didn’t think a single thing he did was productive. He tried to comfort him, but it probably came off as panicked, desperate screaming, and although he had managed to fish some make-shift bandages out of his bag, he really had no idea what to do with them, if they would even help. And maybe he  _ touched  _ Jeff’s bite more than he should have, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

“Austin, I-”

“No, it’s- It’s okay, I-”

“Austin, really, you should go.”

“I-” Austin stammered, taken aback but lacking the actual room to react in the way he felt. “Wh, no, I can’t even go out there, there’s bad guys!”

“I mean, dig or something,” Jeff huffed, gritting his teeth and clearly trying with all his might to hold himself together. “This… I’m not…”

“No, you- You’re not doing that, no,” Austin wheezed, his actions having betrayed his words before he even spat them out, lacking any reasonable way of helping Jeff, and knowing for himself in the very back of his mind that he was going to lose  _ another-  _ No, that would make  _ everybody. Everyone,  _ in this stupid cave, this situation that they could have so easily avoided. He wasn’t ready to be alone. Jeff had done it quite a couple times and he was so much stronger than Austin, and it had  _ broken  _ him too. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t leave, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t  _ breathe. _

Everything seemed to descend into incomprehensibility, their choked bickering and Austin’s clumsy attempts at helping, and the sizzling, burning feeling at Austin’s fingertips.

But they weren’t alone, at least. Neither of them had to worry about that.


	20. day 20/circus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a hard prompt dhgdfh its very loosely with it but. we're back to doll dean which is fun :)
> 
> uhh more serious tw this time this probably qualifies as verbal abuse or something,, same body horror and todd gross-ness, you know what the fuck goin on just watch out

"What the  _ hell  _ are you?"

Mcjones' tone was sharp, _ biting,  _ the most painful thing Dean could have imagined; in this state, at least.

Dean staggered back, pressing his back up against the wall, hugging himself as if it would in any way obscure the  _ disaster  _ that he was on display. For the very first time, and Dean still didn't know why, he was thrown back into the game while still in doll mode. 

Maybe this was a punishment; that really did seem like the most likely option, or maybe a test. Todd was nowhere near careless enough to start up another game without fixing up Dean's façade, and there wasn't  _ any  _ reason for Dean to stay like this, not even a single thing about it was beneficial. He was fragile, and stiff, and constantly aching dully, and frankly, terrifying looking. 

Dean was pretty sure that's what it was, in the eyes of the man approaching him, rage and betrayal highlighted in every single one of his  _ other  _ features; but in his eyes, it was fear.

Dean didn't blame him. This is what always scared him the most, too.

"I- Wh- You're just his little  _ thing,  _ aren't you? You  _ lied, _ to all of us, for fucking  _ what?  _ Just for fun? You don't care about anything but that, huh?" Mcjones accused, not bothering to pause for any of Dean's inaudible interjections. "You- You know what, no. Don't even tell me what you are."

The words Dean had to defend himself, albeit few, slid back into his throat and caught there, the blockage starting to make him panic, maybe even just as scared as Mcjones. It was clear that Dean didn't need to tell Mcjones what he was, it was clear from all of the pure white porcelain, the fine cracks outlining where his veins once were, constantly threatening to break and split him apart completely. 

"Because you know what you are? You're a fucking circus freak. And a liar, and- and a manipulator, and you don't have any fucking capacity for remorse in there, do you?" Mcjones questioned, jabbing a finger towards Dean's chest, but not touching him. Dean was sure that Mcjones wanted to, but they both knew that Dean was on the verge of breaking.

Mcjones was right, too. He  _ was  _ a circus freak, an abomination, a device made and groomed by Todd to just  _ cause problems,  _ and Mcjones was justified in every single one of his claims. 

"You don't fucking belong here. You belong broken somewhere, locked away and fucking  _ forgotten,  _ where you can't hurt anyone else. You belong in a fucking dustpan," Mcjones spat, each word digging deeper and widening Dean's faults. "Cause I'm the fucking one who has to clean up what  _ you  _ did."

Mcjones never actually touched Dean, but he felt it as soon as it started; he was breaking. The cracks spread, sectioning him into pieces and threatening to reveal his  _ hollowness.  _ Some fine piece of machinery in his chest went wrong, he had no idea what part, but it  _ hurt,  _ and it felt like he was a ticking time bomb. He felt pitiful,  _ selfish  _ for worrying about these things when Mcjones was breaking too, right in front of him. He felt like he couldn't breathe, porcelain shards and concrete dust filling his lungs, and most of all, he felt like a fucking  _ joke.  _ A circus freak, through and through. 

He felt a crack split across his face, and it hurt like he had been slashed with a machete. He felt everything build up in his throat cut off his air, and he felt the tears build up behind his eyes, but he physically just  _ couldn't  _ let them out. He heard the shatter of porcelain on the floor,  _ felt  _ himself fall apart.

Mcjones paused for a moment, staring at the floor, scowling in complete disgust. 

"Clean up after yourself, _pull yourself together, _and… You know what, _maybe _I'll let you out of this fucking house alive. Just get _out," _Mcjones ordered, turning on his heel, still very obviously seething. 

But Dean couldn't follow his orders, no matter how much he wanted to. He was  _ broken,  _ sliding down the wall to try and rest, but porcelain didn't fix so easy.

No, he needed Todd for that.

The walls dissolved around him, fading into the warmer colors of the dollhouse, finding himself stranded in the middle of the room; still shattered, but in the spotlight. 

"See?" Todd's voice rang out from behind him, most likely assessing the damage. " _ That's  _ why we have to keep  _ you  _ secret. That's why you don't get close; they'll turn on you, just like that."

Dean's chest heaved, a ragged breath that couldn't even make it to his lungs, picking up a shard and holding it tightly in his hand, seeking the pain the sharp edge brought him.

"What, and you're different?" Dean asked, which was reckless and incredibly stupid, but he hadn't even yet processed that what had just happened  _ wasn't real,  _ and he thought he had nothing else to lose.

Todd came around in front of him, floating down to the floor and sweeping up the shards with merely his hands.

"Of course I am. You're mine," Todd murmured, stroking Dean's cheek again before leaving Dean completely alone.

Maybe he would have been better off if Mcjones really did shatter him beyond repair. 


	21. day 21/horns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had a not so epic gamer moment but only god can keep me from updating this
> 
> this was another hard prompt my little pea brain is working real hard to find ways to make this work in universe but. life finds a way
> 
> tw for body horror and referenced death and todd being creepy for the 79th time,, also shout out to dream for giving me todd and austin to work with fdhgdf

“Oh, come on now- Stop  _ squirming. _ ”

Austin couldn’t abide by Todd’s order, even if it was… in a twisted way, what really was best for him, but he just  _ couldn’t.  _ He felt helpless, panicking on a primal level that really wasn’t all that foreign to Austin, especially not at this point in their adventures, but this was  _ different.  _ Something Austin couldn’t have possibly prepared for.

He was dead, wasn’t he? He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, but it was dark, what seemed like endless space, suspended by some unknown force. He could see his own body, that was something, but he couldn’t move in this space. Maybe this was literal  _ space,  _ but if it were that, he should still be able to move somewhat. It was just as cold and empty though, he could give it that. 

He couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t breathing. Couldn’t move his chest enough to breathe in, and there wasn’t anything at all to inhale; but it didn’t hurt like he knew it should. That fed into the whole dead thing, at least.

But this place wasn’t painless; not in the slightest. Just  _ seeing  _ Todd, hearing his voice and knowing the implications of why he had made himself visible was a torture all on its own. 

But there was something else too. Austin had no idea what exactly, had never heard of anything within the game even  _ remotely  _ alike to this feeling. Of…  _ something  _ under his skin. The tightening and  _ stretching  _ of his muscles, something like growing pains but  _ sharper. _

Something sharp, under his skin, that was it. 

Todd paced around him, moving with ease in the empty space like there was a floor Austin just couldn’t reach, a grin even sharper than whatever it was under Austin’s skin. He watched Austin like a hawk, taking what looked like…  _ pleasure  _ in the way Austin struggled, even as he denounced those actions. 

Austin hadn’t stopped squirming for that matter. Todd approached him, hopping up whatever invisible staircase was in front of him, and Austin found himself face to face with the Wizard.

Something flickered in Todd’s eyes; a lick of yellow flame, just visible beneath the brim of his hat. Austin would call it anticipation, eagerness. Hatred, or maybe just the love of whatever he was about to do. 

He held his fingers up to snap, and did so; soundlessly, in this empty void, but oh so  _ loud  _ in Austin’s bones. 

“Just hold still.”

Austin still very much refused to do that, but hearing his own words, spilled in a panic and spat back at him was enough to freeze Austin, if only for a millisecond. 

Then came the splitting of skin, growth like Austin had never known before, completely taken over by something he had no clue about.

Well, he did. He knew it was Todd, but why this…

Muscled thorns began to pierce through,  _ horns,  _ coated in blood and void-like black  _ grime.  _ From his shoulders, his forearms, his calves, and right from his forehead; Austin could just  _ feel  _ his skull contorting, and he wanted to stab himself on his own horns, if there was any chance that would kill him for real. 

He already was dead, for real, wasn’t he? What was the point of this?

The horns grew long and winding, even darker near the tips, and as the growth plateaued, the pain merely dulled. 

Todd traced his finger along the horn on Austin’s shoulder;  _ fuck, it was sensitive,  _ and let out a chuckle that reverberated all around them. 

“Now, now. If you’ve calmed down enough, are you ready to go back?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> are these stories connected? no. but I am making them connected. yes I did. no I didn't <3


	22. day 22/strangled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long one this time ohoho,, I was excited about this prompt fdjgh it took me a while to figure out exactly where to go with it but :D the strangled part doesn't even happen until the very end and I made it sadder than I needed to at all but. who care
> 
> tw for uhh,, death and ouchies and self hatred and spiders, I must blame panda yet again bc im so scared of cave spiders now this is your fault maam.. ily though

Mineshafts never boded well for them, did they?

Dean couldn’t deny that he was drawn to them every time they came across one while mining; the thought of minecart chests, easily exposed ores, and even the thought of  _ something  _ at this level of intelligence in this world before them was certainly a tantalizing one.

But never, not once that Dean could remember, did venturing into these mineshafts come without some degree of loss. The mineshafts were often huge, beyond comprehension, and incredibly easy to get lost in; maybe whatever made these mineshafts really wasn’t so intelligent at all. But the further in they explored, the more lost they got, the more they were likely to lose.

With the suggestion of treasure and adventure, danger was a  _ promise.  _ The sheer size of the mineshaft left room for countless mobs to spawn in the areas where torches were neglected, let alone the cave spiders that spawned inside and were an  _ infestation  _ beyond hope. 

Dean definitely had a personal vendetta against those spiders at this point; he fucking  _ hated  _ them. 

But they were sure to be found, as soon as Dean set foot into the mineshaft, a decent ways ahead of everyone else. Mineshafts may have implied he would find them, but he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to kill them; even if he knew that it could so easily go wrong.

Had gone wrong, before. But he didn’t like thinking back to that time. 

He knew, somewhat vaguely that the potential rewards of the mineshaft came nowhere near outweighing the dangers, but… well, he wasn’t very smart. He could happily leave it at that. 

It was a step above intentionally, maliciously reckless, anyway. It absolved the guilt, if only slightly.

He didn’t like thinking about that either. He focused on the stone walls around him, knowing that he’d need it if this was going to be a success. The mineshafts always smelled a bit more… wet, than the other caves, for whatever reason that was. Probably the life;  _ do the mobs count as being alive? They’re zombies and skeletons and stuff. What about the creepers?  _

… Whatever. That, complete with the scent of rotting wood and stone dust ever present in the air, the constant threat of suffocation, filled Dean with a sense of adrenaline.

And he knew he was rushing into the mineshaft quicker than he should have; he could have at least waited the ten extra seconds for the others to catch up, but he was excited, who could blame him? Almost immediately too, Dean caught the glint of a chest’s latch from his torchlight and the outline of a minecart at the other end, which was crazy lucky. A success already,  _ nobody _ could tell him shit!

The chest didn’t actually result in much; a couple iron bars, three surprisingly well preserved apples. A hearty helping of rails, which he had absolutely no use for, but still figured he should hang on to, if only for his ego’s sake. No diamonds or anything especially useful like he was hoping for, but he still hollered back at his friends in celebration, definitely louder than was necessary with how much these halls echoed.

… To no response, which was… distressing, to say the least.

There was… only one way in from the cave they were in, right? He didn’t go the wrong way, or something. Maybe he wasn’t loud enough, but he dismissed that concept immediately. Maybe they were playing a trick on him,  _ oh ha ha, very funny.  _

… But as stupid as they all were, these caves were  _ hella  _ stressful as they were, nobody needed the extra concern. They wouldn’t… would they?

“Uh… guys?” Dean called again, trying to be a little louder than last time while still maintaining his composure. Because he  _ definitely wasn’t  _ panicking, why would he be? Not yet, at least.

_ It  _ wasn’t happening again. No, there was nothing to worry about.

He gingerly closed the lid of the chest, turning to find three new paths in front of him. Which, by all logical reason, he should have completely ignored and gone back to find his friends. He probably  _ did  _ go the wrong way somehow, again, he wasn’t the brightest. He was reminded of that quite often, definitely enough to never forget it. 

_ Just turn around,  _ he mumbled to himself, but… What, he couldn’t even listen to his own orders, could he?   


The path directly in front of him, a structurally questionable wooden frame punctuating the entrance, led into what looked like an endless tunnel of darkness. Not a single torch in there, except for… Maybe, tiny licks of flame, or something? Something he was probably imagining, eyes being bored and all.

… And the sound of… _ skittering, _ or something like that. Which was understandably distressing, but he was happy to blame it on the weakened wood, or maybe some dripping water, echoing throughout the mines. There was nothing to be afraid of, truly.

…

He still couldn’t bring himself to move. Not to turn around, not to enter either one of the paths laid out before him. It felt like he was stuck in place, as if he was caught in a mass of spiderwebs and could barely move enough to breathe.

He could move enough to look;  _ nope,  _ nothing there. Not yet.

_ Yet?  _

And it was a sudden, strange and utterly stupid urge; he couldn’t move for whatever reason, but he did want to know what was in that path in front of him, in that endless black tunnel. A problem he could have solved by just… walking, he knew.

But before he gave himself all that much time to think about it, he launched his torch into the tunnel like a javelin.

Which was dumb; he never claimed to be anything else. Doing that could have easily just extinguished the flame, and he hadn’t bothered to prepare another torch, so he could have just been in the dark again, which nobody needed to be told why that was dangerous.

Only, the torch seemed to catch in midair, the flame shrunken but still illuminating the tunnel ever so slightly, and revealing the webs it had caught in.

And within a single second, a hundred shining, beady eyes were on Dean. 

Finally, he found the motivation he needed to just  _ book it  _ in the other direction. Not with much grace, albeit, stumbling in the dark because he just so happened to have the bright idea of yeeting away his torch; but maybe he was a little smarter than he, and all the others for that matter, gave him credit for.

He could have just… walked right into that, which made his skin fucking crawl. The spider nests weren’t usually that thick, were they? Or quite so quiet, as if they were traps, laying in wait for the next stupid adventurer to come along while alone.

But  _ fuck,  _ there was no time to think about that. He could just  _ hear  _ the skittering behind him, now accompanied by screeching not entirely unlike his own;  _ fuck,  _ when he listened closely, it almost sounded human. But  _ fuck no, fuck no,  _ he just needed to get out. Literally one hallway, and it opened right up into the cave they had come from. Maybe he’d finally find his friends, and he’d be saved from this attack. Because he’s too much of a coward to fight them on his own, right?

Was that intelligence or plain stupidity, panic and weakness?

He found himself running for a lot longer than it should have taken him to get back to the cave.  _ Fuck,  _ what did he do this time? He couldn’t just-

He turned around, instinctively, but still by far the dumbest thing he could have done. 

And, obviously, there they were; a quite literal  _ cascade  _ of spiders, tiny and evil and dripping with poison, and  _ fuck,  _ Dean  _ hated  _ them. He hated them for everything they did, everything they  _ had  _ done.

Everything they were about to do.

Each one spun their webs with every inch of ground they crossed, rushing  _ past  _ Dean and up the walls, and Dean quickly realized they were trapping him. That  _ holy shit,  _ he couldn’t move, and he was going to die. It was happening again, but at least it was someone who deserved it this time. He had earned this, hadn’t he? Because he was such a fucking idiot.

In a way, he accepted it. That really just meant that he couldn’t physically do much at all, but he didn’t scream as much as he thought he would. Or should. This was an appropriate thing to scream about, he was pretty sure, but he didn’t. How _intelligent_ of him. 

The webs surrounded him, making a type of cocoon in record time, and Dean found himself sharing such a  _ tiny  _ space with more spiders than he could have even imagined. They were on him before he knew it, wrapping their webs around him and pulling their silk tight, around his legs and his waist, his arms and even covering his mouth, just in case. 

He felt detached from his own body at that point; like he was already dead. He pretty much was, he was ready to accept that, because he was  _ not  _ ready to process exactly what was happening to him. 

The cocoon enclosed even further; he couldn’t help but feel like that was intentional. He wondered idly exactly  _ what  _ would emerge. This was already nowhere near normal; cave spiders, as awful as they were, had never been like _this_ before. Maybe he wouldn’t really hate coming out of this cocoon as a half-dead, brain infected and monstrous spider-dude, as awful as that was to consider. 

Maybe he was already losing his mind, poison running through his veins. He hadn’t really felt it, but surely, with all that was crawling on him, he’d been bitten many times over. Maybe he was trying to avoid what was happening, which he admitted, he was. But maybe he’d like to be feared. To have the upper hand for once. 

That thought came punctuated with a sudden moment of snapping back to reality, as he realized that he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t think he had been breathing much before, shallowly and hyperventilating if anything, but there came a more visceral pain, a  _ panic  _ as he came to notice the silk wrapped around his neck, wound and pulled tight enough to draw blood. 

Finally, a bit of survival instinct kicked in, but there was incredibly little he could do. He remembered vaguely, something about spider silk being extremely strong, which he wouldn’t question at this point. But his attempts at struggling, kicking and trying to shout resulted in absolutely nothing, only the low light that was visible through all the layers of web disappearing from him as he lost consciousness, blood dying the silk red as it cut through his skin like a knife. 

And then, for a while, there was nothing. Just the sound of skittering, distantly, spiders lying in wait, not even knowing what for.

And, distinctly new, the smell of blood. 


	23. day 23/guts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another longer one, this one was really fun I love it :') 
> 
> I asked for characters yesterday and watson gave me ian and ray but I didn't actually use them fdgssh so I used them for this one!! shout out.. also this is 20k words now oh nooo
> 
> same kinda tws bro,, spooks and depictions of death and guts obviously

Ian had to commend Todd for this one; this whole _ haunted mansion _set up was pretty neat. 

This had been an interesting quest, to say the least; being teleported around various areas and arenas, each with their own goal. For some, he had been joined by everyone else; others, only one or two partners.

And here, at what was presumably near the end of their adventure, he was alone. 

The mansion was dark, dimly candle-lit and with long, wide and tall hallways that could really house anything Ian could have imagined, just out of sight in the shadows.

It _ did _ do exactly that; haunted, after all. That, and the other mantra that echoed in Ian’s head, not daring to let him forget, _ find the key, _were the only things Ian really knew for sure.

He had no idea how big this mansion was, really, but going with _ huge _ seemed like a solid guess. Multiple levels and countless, winding and confusing hallways definitely weren’t making this search any easier. Surely, there was _ something _that would differentiate every area from the others, be it furniture, size, or whatever horrible things were hiding in it; but often times, Ian found himself in what he thought to be the same hallway, again and again. 

Ian had nothing against haunted houses; he was a rather large fan of the _ spooky, _ he could admit that. But this place was… actually putting him in danger, for one, and… definitely _ personal. _

It held its fair share of zombies, spiders, creepers and skeletons for Ian to fight off, but even their behavior seemed somewhat _ off. _ Sluggish, maybe. More frightening was how the walls groaned, the persistent concern that this whole place was very much structurally unsafe and that the ceilings might crash on top of him; if he doesn’t hurry up and _ find the key _ already. Just about everything was dusty and even _ rotting, _every painting and piece of furniture crooked, not in a way that was meaningful for some puzzle, Ian was pretty sure; but just wrong. Multiple times, the candles had fallen off the wall and he had to quickly stomp it out before anything else caught on fire, but that just left him in darkness. 

There was this one type of entrance; or maybe it was the same entrance he had tried to walk away from and rediscovered over and over again, but Ian just _ refused _to go in. The doors were tall and wide, dark oak and swung wide open, into absolutely nothing. Just a room of complete darkness, void.

He didn’t need to explain why that was… upsetting, did he? If the key was in there, he was going to be _ so mad. _

But worst of all, was… what Ian supposed he should call the mansion’s _ ghosts. _What haunted house would be complete without them?

Ian would have been just fine if they’d been neglected, actually. Or if they had gone a little more traditional and thrown a white sheet on top of all of their bodies, he would have found that a bit funny, actually.

But the ghosts were his friends, of course they were. He knew they weren’t real; just another thing trying to scare him, although it didn’t make him particularly confident about how the ones still alive who made it to the final challenge with him were doing. 

But they were simply a fact about this place. He tried not to think about it too hard, besides naming them, which he just couldn’t help. Barry, standing in the corners of otherwise unremarkable rooms or curled into a ball and sobbing. Jeff, sitting on top of bookshelves or laying with his neck broken in the center of certain rooms, like a discarded toy. Ian didn’t look up too often; the ceilings were tall and dark for that very reason, and multiple times, he’d found Jeff hanging from the rafters. Luke, playing a siren song on the piano and waiting with bony hands for Ian to stick his neck in. Dean, accompanied constantly by the sound of dripping and muffled underwater screams. Every one of them, malicious in some way. 

And now, Ray; one Ian hadn’t seen yet, slumped lifelessly at the end of this empty, overgrown ballroom. Ian didn’t like this huge, empty space, even if it wasn't exactly _empty, _filled with questionable flora. But his mission rung out especially loud in here, _ find the key. _Maybe it was echoing off the walls.

Ian stepped carefully around the vines littered on the floor, trying to focus on moving rather than the massive plants or even Ray. He needed to be careful, this place was vulnerable, but he needed that _ key _too. If he was right, that the echo was louder in here and he wasn’t just going crazy, maybe he really was getting warmer. 

Soon enough, he stood in front of Ray, the light from Ian’s candle revealing more details of his _ condition. _ No movement, _ obviously dead, _just like everyone else; but a massive, bloody scythe laid abandoned at his side, and there was a massive, perpetually bleeding gash in his stomach. Scratches covered his arms and his face, all of the skin that was exposed from his gardener’s outfit, darkened and stained with grass and blood. 

And something about the hole in Ray’s stomach caught Ian’s attention and held it. _ Find the key. _

He squatted cautiously, inching ever closer to Ray, with no response yet, but he knew it had to be coming. The smell of iron was overwhelming, but closely matched by the smell of pesticide. _ Find the key. _

Nothing else in the room really made Ian gravitate towards it, not one of the many, diverse and frankly terrifying plant life; only Ray. _ Find the key. _

Ian wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was maybe… 45% sure that Ray had the key. Something about it was just… loud.

He slid the scythe a little closer to himself; not for any particular purpose, but just to prevent anything else from snatching it. He set down his candle as well, and once again, he fixated on Ray’s wound. 

_ Find the key, _repeated in his head once more, and it occurred to him that an iron key and a drop of blood had the same smell, if not for the latter being much more overwhelming. 

Ian’s hands started to shake; it was a bit surprising that they hadn’t been before, after all this time. _ Find the key. _

He leaned forward, face to face with Ray’s body, and his hands hovered only centimeters in front of Ray’s stomach. He was sure, definitely more than 45%, that Ray was going to jump out at him as soon as he touched him, but everything was drowned out by the words _ find the key, _yet again. 

Taking a breath and closing his eyes, Ian forced his hand into Ray’s stomach. It was cold, perhaps unsurprising for a corpse, wet and slimy and all around _ awful. _Even without opening his eyes, the thought of all the blood on his hands made him want to throw up.

_ Find the key, _said the echo.

He felt around blindly in Ray’s stomach, pushing his hand in further, not sure exactly what he was expecting; until he traced the edge of something hard, tucked tightly behind some organ.

Cold iron, small, but exactly what Ian needed. _ Found. _

He grabbed the key- He certainly _ hoped _ that’s what it was, and pulled it out carefully, trying not to rip anything else and trying to ignore the _ squelching _of guts and blood, especially ignoring the entrails he had accidentally pulled out of his stomach.

He opened his eyes; his hand was completely coated in dark red blood, but he could still see the outline of the key in his palm, and he held onto it tightly. 

He scooted back, grabbing his candle with his less bloody hand for good measure, just in case Ray were to finally try to jumpscare him.

… Ian quickly tossed the key in his bag, blood and all, and grabbed the scythe with his now free, albeit slippery hand. 

He rose to his feet, pacing backwards, and still, Ray didn’t move. Had he won?

The scythe was comforting, at least. It was dark in this room, especially now at this distance, but Ian thought he might have seen Ray wink at him before he rushed out of the room. 


	24. day 24/glitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is,, a vent but I am better now dsfghdfs
> 
> this ones way more psychological so watch out,, death too I guess

Three hours ago, they stopped talking to Austin. 

He didn't know why; he knew it had to be a glitch or something, something wrong with them. They'd move and work as normal, breathe and all that, but they wouldn't speak. To each other still, in hushed tones, but never to Austin.

The moment it happened, three hours ago, Austin had brought home Jeff's body. Something about it simply… broke the universe, so it would seem. Definitely broke Austin's universe; he knew that so many times before, Jeff had gone on without Austin, even when he was the only one left. 

But Austin wasn't really sure how he was supposed to do that. After this season, he supposed he'd have to ask. Because suddenly, even surrounded by the rest of his friends, Austin found himself alone. 

He wasn't even sure what happened to Jeff; nobody was. It happened suddenly, apparently when nobody was looking, and only moments later, Jeff was found limp, his neck at an incredibly disturbing angle. Maybe it was a glitch.

Maybe. When Austin yelled for help and brought his body inside, nobody said anything.

They just stared. Not with any real purpose, Austin didn't think; not with solemn solidarity or anger, not with resentment or blame. They just stood there, in front of Austin, and stared, completely blank.

Austin wasn't really sure how long that moment lasted; he lost track of time staring back at them through his tears, trying to understand what the hell was going on. 

But eventually, they dispersed. Lucah pulled Jeff out of Austin's arms, wordlessly; Austin had no idea where she put him. In time, Austin was the only one making noise in the entire house, with his sobbing and all. 

He wasn't actually sure if his friends whispered to each other; really, he might have imagined it. He was clueless on this whole thing, other than the one simple fact that he was well aware of, that this was _ wrong. _

He wondered if they blamed him. Nobody had seen what had happened to Jeff, he had no idea who was the last to see him because they wouldn't _ talk, _but Austin was the first to see him after. He knew that his friends wouldn't do that, that these deaths affected them all so badly, that added stress and vitriol didn't help anyone, even if someone had really made a mistake.

But Austin wasn't really sure anymore if these people in his house were his friends. They looked like them, sure; walked like them, worked like them. But certainly didn't talk like them. 

Maybe Austin had done something wrong, something unforgivable. He didn't know, they wouldn't tell him, but it had to be something, didn't it? Maybe this was his punishment; a light one at that, the silent treatment. But Austin could accept that, just as long as they started talking to him again eventually. 

He didn't know if they would, though. He still clung to the idea, because he knew he couldn't lose them all, so soon, so suddenly. How had Jeff dealt with all this before?

Life went on as usual, in the hours after that; only quieter. Austin pulled himself together, forced himself to get back to work, like everyone else. It was like nothing had happened, since he had no idea where Jeff's body was, anyway. Like he had never been here. 

His friends kept on as normal, just silently. Luke organized the chests and paced around the house, fixing every little thing that was crooked or out of order. Mcjones worked at the crafting table, fashioning armor and fixing up their chipped weapons. Dean just… stood there, most of the time, when there should have been merciless jabbering from him getting on everyone's nerves.

It was… disturbing, to see Dean so quiet. Almost as if he was dead, if not for the fact that he was up and breathing. He supposed they were all pretty disturbing.

He hadn't tried to talk to them much, not since his first attempt when they surrounded him and took Jeff away. He'd wave at them sometimes, mutter a quiet "hey," but he knew it never resulted in anything. There was nothing he could do, was there? If this was some spell placed upon them, either he'd need some directions from Todd, or he'd just have to hope they snap out of it on their own.

He really didn't know if this was a glitch, as suddenly and strange as it happened. It seemed like the most likely reason, that or Austin had done something wrong. Either way, it was something that Austin didn't understand. He could certainly be described as desperate, but he really had no idea what he could do, what would get them to start talking to him again. Maybe there was some puzzle, some ritual for him to complete, some potion or a sacrifice that would break the spell, but how was he supposed to know? 

They wouldn't talk; maybe they _ couldn't. _He wondered if they were really in control, but that was all Austin could do, wonder. That, and move on, as usual.

All he could do was hope that one of them would pipe up eventually.


	25. day 25/medical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oop using the guts prompt setup again bc its so fun,, also writing lucah is so fun where are the lucah fics
> 
> tws just uh,,, a corpse,, medical instruments,, unfortunate things

Tools like these were… unorthodox, in this kind of game, to say the least. 

Lucah still wasn’t particularly familiar with these types of worlds; she’d heard _ of _ them, from outside and often from Dean, but her knowledge was limited. Apparently, there was _ something _distinctive about this kind of world that involved more mining and exploring, the goal being to kill a big scary dragon, or a Nether demon thing. She still found it pretty hard to tell apart from the Wall of Flesh one, but oh well.

Apparently, despite this type of world being associated with those things, it was different this time. 

It seemed to be a collection of minigames; arenas, puzzles, and whatnot. She had no idea how many they were meant to go through, when the end would be, which she liked to think was close, why they had to work together in some and alone in others, and if this place was still permadeath; she had to assume it was, but that made it especially worrying that she hadn’t seen Dean or Jeff in a long while. All of these things were strange, but they were a little easier for her, since she didn’t have any expectations going in.

Expectations, she… really didn’t know what to expect, especially not here. She really had no idea what she was getting into, and she didn’t think any of them did. Unethical, but okay Todd. The boundaries of these puzzles were unclear, often gory and… extremely personal, each one pushing those boundaries a little further.

Lucah couldn’t say she really cared, though. Maybe there was something else in her head pushing her forward and motivating her beyond logical reason, but she wanted to win.

She found herself in what seemed to be an abandoned operating room; or maybe an autopsy room, she couldn’t really tell much from the context, being locked in the almost empty room. 

Blue fluorescent lights flickered above her as she analyzed the room; it was no larger than a small bedroom, white walls covered with posters and notes that she couldn’t quite read, and… stains, that she chose to believe were coffee. The floor was cold, tiles colored the same blinding light, and the only things in the room were a single plastic chair, a cart of medical instruments, and a hospital bed with… something, under a white sheet.

The room was silent; save for the whirring of the AC, _ fuck, it’s cold in here, _ and three words repeating in Lucah’s head that she couldn’t explain. _ Find the key. _

She had checked along the walls, under the bed and the chair and in the bins of pointy instruments; those unorthodox ones she definitely knew weren’t still a thing in any other world. She felt like she probably shouldn’t be trusted around this stuff, she’d already come close to cutting herself just rifling around in the bins, looking for whatever key she needed.

For as long as she could, she ignored whatever it was that was under the sheet on the bed, but soon enough, she was running out of ideas.

At least she had a weapon if anything jumped out at her, her scalpel tightly in hand.

As she approached the bed; had she neglected to mention that it was very obviously a body under there? Oh well. The room very much seemed to grow colder, lights dimming and flickering even more rapidly, and she really wanted to get this over with. Again, her thoughts told her to _ find the key. _

She tugged at the sheet, letting it crumple on the floor at the foot of the bed, and found her husband. 

… _ What the actual fuck, _was her first thought.

And the second, _ find the key. _

He was… definitely dead. Dying would… certainly do that to you. 

… This wasn’t fair. He wasn’t even in this game, was he? She’d have seen him by now if he wanted to join and surprise her. This was…

This…

…

Something in her mind just… degraded, losing her train of thought. She wanted to find the key. 

He didn’t jump out at her like she thought he might, but him just… laying there, pale and completely cold was probably disturbing enough on its own merits. Hair splayed out around him and dressed in a suit, which was surprising, _ he looked nice for a dead man. _But something about the tie, a fluorescent sort of blue, caught Lucah’s attention. 

Scalpel in hand, she leaned in closer to his body. He had the key, didn’t he? 

Trying not to think about it too hard, she stepped back for a moment, grabbing a flashlight she had noticed while looking through the bins, still holding her scalpel with the same hand. 

And with that additional light, she opened his mouth. 

Nothing, it would seem. A lot of… blood, she supposed, but no object that she could see. She pulled away quickly, wiping her fingers on her dress.

She checked his eyes, too; she doubted any key would fit back there, but she supposed it was possible. Eye gouging would have been… disturbing, but easy enough, comparatively. She didn’t think too hard about why that thought even crossed her mind, like it was all nothing. No shoes, so nothing was hidden in there. She scanned the rest of the suit for any pockets; no key.

Still, the tie caught her attention; the brightest thing in the bleached room.

She took hold of it, untucking it from his chest, and uncovered a tiny _ x _beneath it. Marking the spot, she supposed, right in the center of his chest.

She laid down the flashlight, holding her scalpel like a weapon. 

… She’d need some more tools for this, probably something bigger; but she never once questioned that she could do it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it really do be your own wife sometimes


	26. day 26/drowning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I write drowning a lot hfhdjs so I wanted to go a little wackier than this but. oh well I still think it is fun
> 
> tw.. guess

There was always something… kind of weird, about how water worked in this type of world. 

From the source, it had a way of flowing infinitely; but not overflowing beyond its path. It somewhat abided by gravity, but the source could float, like many other blocks in this place. Dean never really questioned it; it was just a part of how this world worked. It never really impacted him on the level of drinking or bathing, and he had learned after all this time how to use its properties to his advantage, even if it… occasionally slipped his mind.

The two by two pit that would allow for infinite bucket fills, dumping water on top of lava to make obsidian and then picking that water back up, using it to scale walls; it’s really only when he starts really thinking about it, it becomes strange. He didn’t know why it worked this way, but that was just how it worked.

And so, he wondered if _ this _ was normal, too. Death was always kind of weird in this type of world, just the same. Where you stay in your body, decaying and being laid to rest wherever you rejoin the earth. In graves, or somewhere obscure, where the others can’t find you, or there’s no one _ left _ to find you, or they simply never know you’ve died. It’s a frightening thought, sure, but it’s just how it works here. It wasn’t always like this, Dean was like, 60% sure; but there was no point in fighting it, trying to argue with Todd.

That had really… never gone well for him. 

And so, by putting the pieces together, Dean’s predicament made sense. On his back, in a forest of kelp and loosened sand slowly settling around him, staring up at little fish and sunbeams piercing the surface. He couldn’t move, not physically, but he couldn’t stop staring. Not quite yet, but he imagined he’d be able to move a little more once more of him was just sand. The events prior to one’s death can get a little muddy, and Dean really had no idea how he had died; he assumed he had panicked somehow.

But he had drowned, which wasn’t nearly as bad as he thought it was going to be. He barely even remembered suffocating, the struggle and the pure panic that was not being able to stop sinking, _ the water filling his l- _

_ Okay, yeah, _ the more he thought about it, the more he remembered. He couldn’t exactly feel his body at this point, but he was excruciatingly aware of the weight of the water. He chose to simply put it out of his mind. 

He didn’t think he was doing anything particularly special, nothing that he could remember; but that didn’t exactly explain how he had gotten all the way out in the middle of the ocean. When he strained out of his body to look over, the shore wasn’t all that far away, but it still didn’t make much sense. That was another funny thing this water did; when you sink, you get pulled straight down. 

Maybe he was alone, just doing something stupid. That wouldn’t surprise him; he had built up a reputation of being reckless. And stupid, mostly that. So he had gone out on his own, unsupervised, to do something stupid but fun, and had managed to drown himself. That sounded like something he would do, and he had no reason not to believe it.

But that meant the others had no idea where he was, no idea he was dead, which was upsetting. Only when Dean thought about it too hard though, when he started thinking about how they might feel; that didn’t need to concern him. He had families of fish and slowly shifting sun beams to focus on, and having so much empathy was never… particularly _ helpful, _in this state.

He felt a bit like a kid, sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool and staring up at the surface, all the comforting pressure and the almost hypnotizing reflections. He had always found it pretty, and found himself wishing he could stay down for longer, swim for longer without getting tired.

In a way, this was practically ideal for him. Not the whole being dead thing, but being here; he _ strongly _ preferred this over being stuck in a shallow grave with the surface just out of his reach, or some lava pit deep in the caves. It was relaxing, _ gorgeous _even, at least during the day. At night, he could pretend like he didn’t exist, like he was in a truer state of death. 

Really, he liked this a lot more than he thought he would, than he probably _ should. _ Despite not even death being a true respite, he felt like he could rest down here, so _ peaceful_. He felt like water and death were similar here; weird, mostly, and infinite in a strange, nonsensical way, and well… obviously, death was a lot _worse_, but he just liked it here. Maybe that was selfish and strange and completely idiotic, but it wasn’t like anyone was going to tell him that, here. It surprised him, really, how much he liked the silence. 

But after a couple days, he supposed the universe couldn’t let him get too comfortable. That’s when things stopped making sense. 

He’d been watching a little blue and white fish with those bigger fins, _ what are they called? _ As it swam close to him, before he noticed that he could move. Not just ghost-him trying to get out of his body; he could see his hand, decayed and utterly bloated with water, but his own. And he could actually turn his head to look, he could _ blink, _which was very new. Nothing hurt anymore, not even the dull ache that persisted for a while when one enters that state of death; instead, a cold, rushing feeling coursed through his veins. 

He was able to sit up, able to tease the fish with his finger, even let out a muffled laugh when it nipped at his finger then swam away. He didn’t understand in the slightest, this didn’t make _ any _sense, but he certainly couldn’t say he was mad. Maybe it was a glitch, or something.

Or a mission. He didn’t really… _ particularly _want to go to the surface, he liked it down here, but something just told him to. 

He didn’t know why, either; this was the kind of thing that he just didn’t question, at this point. He wasn’t sure what his actual body was… like, at this point, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know, beyond looking down at his arms and finding them unsurprisingly _ fucked._ The rest of him was probably just as awful and decayed and corpse-y; he vaguely knew what a drowned person looked like after a while, and he knew it wasn’t pretty. But he must not have been _ that _decayed, because he could still swim, surprisingly well; he’d say even better than before, but that would just be absurd. 

The surface wasn’t all that far away, not at all; which just made him confused again about how he had drowned in the first place. But regardless, being out in the sun again was a strange feeling, one that kind of hurt his skin. And there was water stuck in his ears, obviously, but it was still so much _ louder _ up here. He still didn’t know why he was doing this, and he kinda-_really _hated it.

But strangely, it was a lot easier to float now than it must have been when he drowned, like something wouldn’t _ let _him sink again. That was mean. If he was just a child again, he claimed those childish urges, and he wanted to go back and look at the fish, this wasn’t fair-

He wasn’t all that far from the shore either, and there _ they _ were. He ducked under quickly to be sure that they wouldn’t see him, and he had no idea _ exactly _ what they were doing, if they were just having fun or _ looking for him, grieving; _but it turned that flowing in his veins freezing cold. 

It was a sudden urge, one that he didn’t understand, childish and completely naïve to the gravity of what he wanted to do; but he wanted to show them the fish, the sunbeams, how it felt to be that kid at the bottom of the swimming pool and the joy of getting to stay there. 

He wanted that for them, almost as badly as he wanted to stay this way forever.


	27. day 27/mask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so fool I posted this to the wrong fic dhgvdfsgds
> 
> this ones shorter and very loose with the prompt wahh but. you know who it is
> 
> tw.. oh the regular sad and body horror and.. meanness

"Okay, just- Hey. It's okay-"

"Are you  _ fucking  _ kidding me? You're telling me that?"

Dean winced at Lucah's outburst, setting his jaw and already feeling the  _ fragility  _ return to his joints, his bones, his teeth;  _ it  _ was happening again, wasn't it?  _ Fuck, why? _

"Look, just- I know, I know, but-"

"But  _ what?  _ What the  _ fuck  _ is happening?" Lucah demanded, but the anger in her voice slipped into sounding a lot more like desperation, the straining of her vocal cords as they turned to porcelain; Dean was all too familiar with that.

Dean checked quickly to see if anyone was coming; nothing he could see at least, from the table they were tucked behind like children. Considering this was the one thing Dean was afraid of, he had some doubts about how well he could handle this, but he  _ had  _ to try and help. He didn't understand.. at all, really, Todd had to be up to something, but-

Dean looked back at Lucah, taking note of her skin, shiny and hard porcelain, her eyes, dry and heavy in her skull but clearly  _ afraid,  _ the crack that split her face in two and seemed to only be getting worse. Dean had no idea how she got it, or really what to do, but it almost felt like looking into a mirror. As cruel as that was, to see the despair in her face and be  _ glad  _ about it.

"You… You're like me," Dean breathed, feeling that  _ gathering  _ behind his eyes and knowing he couldn't let it out, but hoped that she could see it. He extended a hand, joints creaking, cold porcelain on top of porcelain, and he could only hope he was being comforting; which in hindsight, he probably wasn't.

But who could blame him? It was selfish of him, sure, but for once, he wasn't alone. 

"You're like me, okay? I know it's… freaky, but… hey, I've been living like this. We can figure this out."

There was nothing for a moment, just porcelain on porcelain, feeling the fine machinery ticking in his chest and hoping it wouldn't break from how quickly it was working, the scraping rather _painful _sounding but _singing,_ _you're like me_.

"... How?" Lucah murmured, prompting Dean to look up and find that the crack had grown much wider, revealing… _something _dark, Dean had no idea what. He had been led to believe he was hollow, and thus she would be too, but… 

"I… I don't know, I bet Todd did something, but it's alright, really. It'll get… fixed soon, I hope, we just need to g-"

"No, I know," Lucah interrupted, the twang of broken machinery almost deafening. "I know how."

The porcelain hand under Dean's turned burning hot, and before he could even jump back, he found himself being shoved to the ground. He definitely felt  _ something  _ break with the impact, and broken shards fell on top of him, revealing someone… completely normal.  _ Better. _

"We'll never be like you, freak," she spat, and Dean realized.  _ Oh, this again. _

He didn't bother fighting her, knowing that everything would dissolve in mere moments, and  _ Todd, fuck, Todd,  _ would make it all better.

"Yeah,  _ thanks Todd,"  _ Dean mumbled, feeling the grinding of parts in his chest and the crumbling of his vocal cords, feeling the heat burning him from the inside out, but he just didn't care. 

He found himself wishing that for once, since Todd so often had the urge to break his toys, he didn't bother fixing him. It didn't make much difference to him, if he was always broken, always alone. 

Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure where broken dolls go. Maybe locked away somewhere in Todd’s dollhouse, somewhere out of sight; or just thrown into the void, smashed into pieces and discarded, what little that could be salvaged used to make something better. All of those options were pretty appealing to him right now, he had to admit.

Or maybe  _ this  _ was where broken dolls went. Played with until they’re nothing. 

He still didn’t understand much of anything; why Todd was doing this, why all of  _ this  _ was his fate, when would it all end and why anything, why  _ everything? _

But mostly, he just had to wonder, exactly  _ what  _ he was still doing here. 


	28. day 28/heartbreak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter one again but oh Lawd we are getting close to the end wahhh,, this is.. definitely about someone in particular ghdfh but you can read it as pretty much anyone if you really want to,, also lowkey another vent 😔 tex moment
> 
> tw uhhh the usual,, violence and death just kinda,, referred to and sadness

"I think it's a lot… harder, without him," Dean sighed, leaning up against the wall for support, just barely able to hear the monsters creeping outside. "Is that a thing? I don't know. I'm just…"

"No, I get it," Jeff replied, white knuckling his sword as he kept a watchful eye on the door, half boarded up but still trembling. "Don't know if now's the time, though."

"Might not get another chance," Dean murmured, knowing it was a fatalistic and selfish thing to say, but he couldn't stop himself. He didn't understand half of his actions and motivations in this game, technically didn't  _ need  _ to; but he still couldn't help but notice that everything was… worse, now. Every pickaxe and sword swing took more effort, every step taken forwards was heavier, and every mob seemed  _ stronger.  _ The days seemed shorter, the crops grew weaker, something about the chestplates made it  _ really  _ hard to breathe, and haunting his every moment was the sense that  _ something  _ was missing.

He knew, of course, who was gone.

And if anyone would understand that, it would be Jeff, but Dean didn't have much faith at all in how much time they had. With all of that weakness, it was honestly shocking that he had survived this long, let alone being among the final two, although he supposed he hadn't done all that much. His whole character was all about being reckless and stupid but  _ brave,  _ wasn't it?

Maybe that was only when he had someone to contrast. He didn't know what was left of him, here. 

Here, he was just terrified of  _ everything _ . Terrified of the mobs outside, terrified of the pathetic excuse of a house they lived in collapsing on top of him, terrified of the pain and of being alone, terrified and leaving Jeff alone for  _ what, the billionth  _ time now. Terrified of what would happen when, or _if_ _ he  _ came back and he wasn't ready. 

Dean couldn't break anything else, not  _ again. _

Jeff spared a glance towards him, sighing, keeping his focus on the door but almost seeming sympathetic.

"Not… with that attitude, first of all, but… I do get it. It takes a lot out of you to just… lose, those people you care about. Over and over again."

Dean nodded, but he knew Jeff was talking specifically about himself. Dean wasn't going to lose  _ him  _ again, because  _ he  _ wasn't coming back. Was he?

"Does everything feel… heavier, to you?"

Jeff chuckled, weakly and somewhat bitter, but it was something. Some semblance of a time before this, something better. 

"God, yeah. I dunno' why really, but it totally does," Jeff explained, and Dean wondered if he was the first person to bring it up. "Think it's gotta do with the loneliness or something. Pressure to win, or fuckin' heartbreak or something. I don't really know."

Heartbreak.  _ That'll do it. _

"... Yeah. Sucks mega balls."

Jeff laughed again, sounding honestly  _ genuine  _ and like music to Dean's ears. It had been  _ way too long  _ since he'd laughed like that,  _ smiled  _ like that.

And from something  _ so fucking stupid. _

That was all Dean had to do to make them smile, huh? And he couldn't even do that 85% of the time. What the fuck was he still doing here, without  _ him? _

"Think we can do this, though?" Dean asked, knowing it was a loaded question and just begging to be interrupted by the monsters outside, but he just  _ had  _ to ask. 

"... I mean, my track record's not the best, can't say I'm all that confident, but… assuming you stick around, cause I'm gonna be so mad if you die- if anyone can, I bet it's you."

…

Dean didn't believe him. 


	29. day 29/mutation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOO BOY this one got long,, itll probably be my longest one for the whole chapters but I guess I cant promise that fdjhdfs,, I really wanna hit 30k words so im going kinda wacky for these we boutta hit it.. I wrote all of this very fast too I hope it is decent
> 
> tw for uhhhh.. a lot... yknow if you've read this far youll be fine its just more sadness and body horror and ouchies and all that of a lot of different kinds

Dean really had no idea what to expect, entering a game in which their only goal was to “survive.” 

He was sure that Todd had something up his sleeve; when didn’t he? When did he do _ anything _ that wasn’t with the purpose of making them, _ him _ specifically, _ miserable? _ Dean couldn’t exactly complain, not to Todd’s face, not after… _ everything _that’s happened, and so he was left in a game that he really wasn’t ready for, not in the slightest. 

It didn’t seem all that different at first. Dean found himself face down in the dirt, he was pretty sure Todd was doing that on purpose because everyone else woke up face up, in just a regular oak tree forest, surrounded by dandelions and long rustling grass. A river was nearby, separating them from a plains biome that Dean immediately saw the potential for a village in. It all seemed good, at first; he figured it always did. 

If surviving was their goal, then… Okay, maybe Dean wasn’t exactly the best at that considering his track record, but they could just hole up somewhere, right? Todd would probably send down some other quest in time, like the angry god he was, but all he had to do right now was survive. If they could find a village on their first day, they’d be totally set!

When he pulled himself up, after wiping his face and sneezing from the dirt, he found all of the others already awake. _ Fuck, _he had to be just… really unlucky, when it came to this. This stuff really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but he’d always appreciate… maybe a stronger start.

But that didn’t matter now. Mcjones, directly in front of him with his back up against a tree, in what looked like… pajamas, for some reason, gave him a smirk and a _ good morning, _ eyeing the others still in the process of waking up. Austin was to his left, slowly sitting up and grinning brighter than the sun, wearing… suspenders and some scruffy looking vest. Dean wasn’t sure what he was dressed as. And then to his left, Jeff, continuing to lay on his back as mumbled something to Austin, dressed in flimsy, pointless armor and a red cape, it seemed…? Wouldn’t that be inconvenient for this? He knew Jeff was supposed to be Thor, he wasn’t _ that _dumb, but the whole… outfits thing in general had always felt weird to him. 

They all got to choose their outfits, he thought, at least. He wasn’t sure… when, though, because he never remembered picking his own. He’d always recognize it once he was in the game, and the others would yell at him for always picking an anime character, but he was never sure if he, himself, actually picked it. Maybe he just forgot, but the others always seemed to remember when they talked about their choices, so… Dean just assumed he was being stupid and irrational, again, appointing some big villain when his own memory was to blame.

Why wouldn’t Todd let him pick his own costumes? That was probably one of the dumbest things he had ever thought up, let alone _ accused _of anyone.

He put the thought aside. When he looked down at himself, finding oh so _ familiar _ pink frills and painstaking stitches, he didn’t just set the thought aside, he launched it into the garbage. He didn’t need the reminder, whether if it was him or Todd who picked it, _ fuck, _ he just _ couldn’t _ remember. He didn’t need this right now, not so _ soon, _and so he ignored it. 

To Jeff’s left was a sight that _ immediately _ put him back in a better mood, long ginger hair that looked like it could set this whole forest on fire, _ Lucah. _ In some… steampunk thing, he didn’t know exactly what from yet again, but with shiny bronze trinkets and navy blue, she looked _ cool as fuck. _He chose to ignore the juxtaposition to himself, and simply scooted closer to her, letting all of his excitement show on his face. And in his voice.

… Maybe he was overcompensating a bit for how scared he was, but whatever. Lucah was great, and _ this _would be great. 

Finally, to his right were two more, helping each other up, a warm silky voice that Dean automatically registered as Luke, and a face obscured by a river of brown hair, but from his laugh alone, Dean knew it was Ian. _ Fuck, _it had been forever since Ian had been here, so this was sick! This would be fine, they were fine. 

They looked happy, at least; the smile on Luke’s face was a worthy challenger to Austin’s, brighter than the white angel robes he wore, which were yet again, anyone’s guess as to who exactly he was meant to be. And Ian, as stoic as he used to, or _ pretended _to be, in an all green suit that let him blend into the grass, looked just thrilled to be in Luke’s presence.

They were happy. Dean knew how to mirror that, but he couldn’t help asking himself exactly why he wasn’t.

But that didn’t matter. This was a new game, a new chance, a new experience that _ really this time, _ he wouldn’t mess up. All they had to do was survive, they could hopefully go and find a village, and they’d be perfectly fine, _ go ahead and put the trophy in the bag, Todd. _

But of course, that sense of preparedness, _ peacefulness, _just couldn’t last. They all made it across the river in one piece, nobody drowned, and they found a village with plenty of time to spare before nightfall, boarded up and ready for whatever should come.

Of course things got weird after nightfall. They couldn’t even have one night, could they? 

They all decided roommates, just in case anything went wrong and it would be dangerous to be alone for any reason; Austin and Jeff, Luke and Ian, and Mcjones, Lucah, and him. Team New Kids reunited, as Mcjones begrudgingly pointed out.

… Maybe ten minutes after sundown, Mcjones had some kind of seizure, collapsing and coughing up blood onto the floor, which the villager whose house they occupied didn’t seem to appreciate. Yet another thing Dean had no idea what to do about, no idea what it even _ was, _if not some magic Todd thing to torture them yet again. 'Magic Todd torture thing' was usually a safe bet, but Dean could never be sure.

Lucah was a lot better at comforting him, being the one to catch him in the first place and helping him down to the floor, rubbing his back and comforting him as Mcjones just… sat there, shaking. Mumbling to himself, bleeding from the mouth, and _ crying _ with clouded over eyes_, _ which Dean was pretty sure he had never even seen Mcjones cry before. Even if this was a magically altered state and didn’t count, it was sure something to witness as Dean sat several feet away, trying not to panic and just being _ useless, _as always.

Dean didn’t know how long it was, definitely _ too long, _ but eventually the _ seizure-thing _stopped, his eyes going back to normal. He slowed his breathing, wiping the blood from his chin, leaning further into Lucah’s reassuring touch and adjusting his glasses.

And up against Lucah’s hand, turned ever so slightly… transparent.

Mcjones didn’t need to say anything at all for Dean to know something had changed. 

_ Mutations _ was the name of this game, Dean had so brilliantly and intelligently figured out. It didn’t take long for screams to come from the other houses, bloodcurdling from one and panicked, accompanied by powerful flashes of light from the other. This was why they had roommates, Dean figured, but obviously, that _ wasn’t enough. _ They, _ he, _ needed to go help them, _ now. _

But Dean’s joints just simply wouldn’t move. He felt it happen, as he had felt it so many times before; his skin hardening, becoming hollow inside and making it so hard to move without shattering himself. Lucah noticed, gasping, but almost immediately encountering a transformation of her own, talons and spikes growing from her hands, trailing up her arms. 

They didn’t leave the house for the night; none of them _ physically could, _ with Mcjones completely drained, Lucah paralyzed by the pain, and himself being _ like that, again, _but it still didn’t feel all that epic, leaving all the others to their own devices. 

Mcjones kept them updated though, both convenient and excruciating as he explained, words falling from his bloodstained lips that they all knew weren’t his own, directions and answers that they couldn’t enact.

_ Austin needs to go back to the river. Luke needs to calm down so he’ll stop flashing. Ian needs to step away from Luke. Austin is growing and he can’t breathe. Ian needs higher ceilings. Jeff needs to stay away from Austin so he doesn’t electrocute them both. Luke needs to calm down before he permanently blinds himself. Jeff needs to let out his energy before he shocks everyone within a three mile radius and sets the whole village on fire. _

And so on, and so forth. The night seemed like it would last forever at this rate. Lucah was able to ask Mcjones exactly what was happening to them, which was helpful, Dean supposed, but it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

_ Austin is becoming amphibious and can only survive in air for a short period of time. His mutations reflect that aquatic adaptation, growing gills, webbed digits, and scales. This process is extremely painful. As he becomes more like an animal, his mind will degrade and become more animalistic as well. He’s kind of like you, Lucah. _

Oh, great.

Lucah was crying too at this point, _ fuck, _and Dean knew he would be too if he wasn’t physically incapable of it without literally taking his eyes out. He wasn’t sure of how much Mcjones was actually talking; it sounded like him, obviously, and shared that same bluntness Mcjones often used, but this just… didn’t seem right.

_ Oh, you, Lucah? Yes, you’re becoming a beast, like him. You can see the talons starting to grow now, and the spikes up your arms. Those spikes will continue up and over your body, you’ll grow horns and plates, and the pain will drive you to madness, assuming you survive. _

“... At least I’ll look cool,” Lucah choked out, but Dean was pretty sure his vocal cords had turned to porcelain by now, not letting him laugh at that, even if he had wanted to.

_ Dean, you’re a doll now. I’m told you know the drill, don’t bump into anything too hard. And oh, me, I just get visions. And if I overexert myself, either physically or looking into those visions, I’ll fade and cough up blood and stuff. And probably die. Which is good to know. _

Todd had a lot of fucked up ideas, but this really took the cake. How was this even supposed to make an entire season? How long would they be able to survive this, when would they win? Dean wouldn’t be surprised if the whole point of this was just to hurt them, as the game always did, and to _ gloat. _To give them all a fun little twist, a sweet little dose of horrific body horror, a funny little gimmick that would be over when this season ended.

Not for Dean, though. He was always going to be like this, whenever he wasn’t in the game, and he could _ never _ leave. They would all recover from this, but not him. He had to act like this was all spooky and crazy but _ new, _ not the reality that haunted him every single day. The secret that was on full display now, but _ still, _nobody understood. 

Dean didn't know why he was even asking; he _knew _Todd would gladly do that to him. But right now, it was a lot easier to just ignore, pretend like it didn't matter.

_ Jeff has the ability to generate electricity, and has what Todd calls a “hamster wheel heart.” Todd thinks that is funny. He’ll shock anyone within range of him, and his attempts in controlling it may vary. He needs to expend his energy in some form, or else his skin will melt off. And he can’t get anywhere near water, Austin’s river specifically, without killing every living thing in it. _

Dean really had to ask why all the others got cool, strong mutations. Equally, if not more torturous, obviously, but… Oh, well.

_ Luke can store light and produce it, to a degree, releasing it in powerful flashes like he is now. At other times, he’ll just glow, and he’ll look nice. But if he doesn’t stop doing all that, first he’ll go permanently blind, and then he’ll die if he overexerts himself. _

… Todd seemed a little biased in his mutation choices there, but Dean couldn’t blame him. Luke deserved a nicer mutation.

Lord knows Dean didn’t.

_ And finally, Ian can hear other people’s thoughts when they’re within range, the volume depending on how far away they are from him. But, of course, this is overwhelming and physically painful to a degree, which has led to their situation over there. _

Mcjones vaguely gestured to their window, illuminated with bright white flashes about every ten seconds. Even that simple, easy gesture made Mcjones fade a bit more, and sink back into himself. 

_ That stress may also impact his body, stretching his limbs, and the overexertion may also kill him. There’s a lot of that, that’s kind of funny. Oh, Luke is dead. That’s unfortunate. _

Dean didn’t have the strength to ask Mcjones _ hey, what the fuck, _about any of that, neither did Lucah. But slowly, the screaming outside subsided, the flashes through the window suddenly ceased, and all they could do was wait for some semblance of strength to return to them, so they could actually make it five steps outside without collapsing.

Which didn’t seem like something Dean would be able to do for a while. He wondered if they were surviving, if they were doing this right.

Probably not. 

He wondered if there was a way to do it right at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ill never get over doll dean im gonna ride him out god damn it,, also hamster wheel heart made me cry a little bit when I first thought of it fdhgdf
> 
> also also, to explain their outfits bc dean didn't and I thought they were funnee,, austin is jack from titanic, mcjones is the kid from the sixth sense, and I didn't even have characters for lucah luke and ian not gonna lie fsdhgdf I just wanted them to look nice,, theres a subliminal message throughout all of this and its just that I want lucah to push me down the stairs


	30. day 30/possession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh we're so close we're so close,,, gimme a minute to post the last chapter bc im not gonna have any time at all tomorrow to post it but lets go!! lets get it!! I have never used dodger in these which is upsetting but its okay because shes here now!! pogs in the chat baby!!
> 
> tws just the usual,, referenced death and gore and murder and stuff, and todd being a big meanie

“You want me to do _ what?” _

Dodger staggered back a bit, trying to maintain a brave face, but this was just _ fucked up _to the highest degree. She had only been dead for… Well, she didn’t really have any way of telling time in this place, but not long at all. The whole resurrection decision probably didn’t take all that long, maybe a couple days at the most, and so this was just whiplash inducing.

In a single moment, she went from spectating in that weird dark place that she… really didn’t understand, still; kind of a ghost but not? Whatever, from that, to somewhere equally dark, but _ physical. _Her window to the living was taken away, and she had her body back, but now she had to do… whatever the Wizard wanted her to do, supposedly.

“Kill them. It’s simple, really,” Todd repeated, hovering a couple centimeters above the fog, seemingly for no particular reason, other than to look cool. “You come back, wait a bit for all the hype to die down, then I’ll be with you to help you out, but you can kill them really any way you w-”

“_That. _ That’s- You’re crazy. Why would I even _ consider-” _

“Look- I know you’re new here _Brooke_, but really, it just happens. It’s what we do, it’s not that serious, and come on, you’re gonna be a _ zombie. _Not like they’re gonna trust you anyway.”

Dodger was pretty sure that was not what they did _ at all. _ What was that even supposed to mean? The parameters of this place were… weird, sure, with Todd’s questionable influence on everything and a lot of people’s presumed inability to leave, but they didn’t just _ murder _each other. That, at least, should have been made a little more clear to her, right?

The pain was real here, as was death. She’d found that out the hard way, quite a few times. She wouldn’t even dream of putting anyone else through all that. 

… The whole resurrection thing in the first place, this meant they had chosen her over Mcjones. Who was really the reason they went on that adventure at all. That… That wasn’t fair, was it?

“No,” Dodger stated, praying that would make it final but knowing it most likely wouldn’t. “No way.”

Todd sighed, lowering himself to the ground with a thud that echoed throughout the room, regardless of its lack of visible walls. 

_ “Look, _ Dodger. What’s so wrong about it? I assure you, this kind of stuff _ happens, _they know better by now about those little vague magical items of mine, and they aren’t going to blame you for anything, I assure you. I’ll come along with you and help you out, you can ask me all the questions you may need, and-”

“Yeah, here’s a question, what the _ fuck?” _ Dodger interrupted, a bit too caught up to think about if bursting out like that was really a good idea. “You- I can’t just- No, I can’t just fucking _ kill them. _Are you kidding me?”

“Why not?” Todd asked, a smirk growing from underneath the brim of his hat, and Dodger wanted to punch him in the teeth.

“Um, they’re my _ friends. _Do you not have those?”

“You’ve only known them for what, a couple weeks? I assure you, there’ll be no lingering resentment, they should know better by now, and of course, they’ll be back. If anything, if you succeed in your mission, they’ll respect you more than ever.”

Dodger clenched her jaw, standing her ground and trying her hardest to withstand… whatever it was Todd was doing right now. She was not gonna let herself have _ any _of it.

“... That doesn’t make any sense. I’m not gonna do that. Why don’t you go ask Mcjones to do it if you-”

Todd cut her off with a smug chuckle, almost maniacal.

“Oh, Mcjones… Believe me, if you were to ask him what are the best ways to kill off those _ friends _of yours, he could tell you about it for hours. I’ve seen just about everything he’s capable of; and look at him, he’s in perfectly decent standing with all the others, after all this time.”

… Dodger had no way to prove that, but… there was no way to disprove it, either. It did _ kind of _sound like something Mcjones would know about, since he practically knew everything, but he wouldn’t… mean all that, would he? All some big joke, right?

… That was all it was to Todd, wasn’t it? All some big joke. Was that really what it was to them…?

“... Like what? What do you mean, what he’s capable of?”

Todd chuckled again, some strange metallic _ twinkling _noise ringing out as he paced back and forth in the empty room.

“Well, if they had chosen to revive him, you would have seen,” Todd teased, grinning quite… genuinely. He might have winked, but Dodger couldn’t really tell due to the hat, and she just assumed he imagined it. “He’s a MacGyver kind, there’s something of an art to it, but regardless; it’s not about him. I want to see what _ you’re _capable of, Brooke.”

… Dodger must have been scared out of her mind, because she could just feel her will slipping. Was Todd already with her…?

“... I’m really not sure if you’d be in for very much.”

“They all say that,” Todd said, smiling, and it was _ blinding. _Somewhere, buried deeply in her mind and suffocated by other thoughts, she knew Todd was already controlling her. “And they all impress me, one way or another.”

Violent thoughts. Her fists clenched at her sides; not in defiance or in repression, but merely for how it felt when her nails dug into her palms. She was never the squeamish type, really. Maybe, all this time, she secretly liked the blood and guts. If she didn’t before, she did now. 

Now, all she could think about was what she might do, her mind drifting to swords and axes and leads, in her hands and soaked in red. All she could hear was the screams, the pleads, that _ squishing _ sound and her own laughter. All she could think about was the smell of fresh blood and upturned dirt, and something about it was _ intoxicating. _

“... Okay,” she murmured, a smile slowly growing on her face that mirrored Todd’s. “I’m… ready.”

“I knew you’d be,” Todd said proudly, turning around sharply and letting the whole room suddenly snap into darkness.

A couple seconds passed, and Dodger was dropped back on the ground, surrounded by the sound of the wind rustling through the grass, the river running nearby, and_ voices. _

It made her so much happier than she could possibly say to be back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk why calling her brooke freaks me out so much but it does wahh,,, don't do that todd you fucking.. ugly ass..


	31. day 31/trick or treat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE HERE YALL,, WE DID IT,, AAAHH,,,
> 
> this has almost nothing to do with the prompt but I do not CARE im so happy wahahhh,, AND we made it to 30k words so pog!!!
> 
> bigger tw here theres kind of,, vague suicidal thoughts and I guess this classifies as self harm oops, and blood and gore and stuff you know the drill but hoooo boyyyy aaaahhh

Dean was at his _ fucking _limit.

He couldn’t keep doing this. He couldn’t keep up this whole charade, this lie, whatever _ this _ that Todd was doing to him could be classified as. His entire existence as Todd’s doll; played with until he broke and glued back together with only the intent of treating him even worse next time. As this picture perfect porcelain piece of art, with rosy cheeks and frilly dresses, Dean couldn’t help but feel like Todd put more pride and care into the dresses than _ him, _but regardless; he couldn’t keep doing this. 

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do, if anything. He didn’t know what he physically could do, what would get him out, one way or another, and what would just fail miserably and land him in a position even worse than the one he started in. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to do, exactly; but he needed it to stop. 

There was somewhere outside of this game, Dean was sure. The guests had to come from somewhere and go back when they were done, the other regulars must have come from somewhere, unless they were _ created _ like Dean was. But then that would imply that the guests were created as well, and Dean’s purpose as their additional _ enrichment _ was completely null. He didn’t think that was the truth, maybe he would have seen them in the dollhouse if they really were, and the concept that absolutely _ nothing _ existed outside of this place was just… physically impossible. All of that just pushed him even closer to his conclusion, that he needed to _ leave. _

Whether he escaped, or died trying, or was broken for good for daring to try at all; Dean didn’t really care which ending he got, he just _ needed _something. 

He’d been broken many, many times before; by the game, by the stress and fear of suffering, by Todd, by the others that Todd pretended to be in order to hurt him _ more; _ every time, Todd would glue him back together, murmuring his praises and apologies and promising that it wouldn’t happen again. That Dean was not to worry, he’d always put him back together, he was the only one who _ could. _

But Dean was a different kind of broken now, standing in the spotlight yet again, staring at the ground in the center of the dollhouse. Todd was lecturing him for maybe the hundredth time now, about how he needed to try harder, be _ better _ for his friends, to stop getting so close and stepping out of line, to stop being such a _ failure, _ an _embarrassment. _

Dean had heard it all before, but somehow, this time, he didn’t feel that suffocating wave of shame come over him. He just felt numb, still fragile, but almost… anticipating something. Dean didn’t know what yet, but he knew it was coming.

He was going to break for good. He _ wanted _ to. He wanted to scream and shatter and become everything Todd told him he was, and for once, not be put back together. He didn’t care about how much it might hurt, about the others, about how _ Todd felt, fuck no. _ He just needed it all to _ stop. _

Todd would lecture him about this if he hesitated; about the dangers of such impulses, about how he needed to be watched and controlled for his own good, that Todd most certainly didn’t want him getting _ hurt, _ but Dean didn’t give a _ fuck. _He’d already been hurt, so many times over, so many times in the same exact way, because he was too much of an idiot to realize just what Todd was doing to him. 

… He didn’t want to call himself an idiot. That was something Todd would call him, and he knew all of this… wasn’t his fault. But from now on, he wanted to take control, _ needed to, _and he was going to end this. Whether that was his great, grand escape, or smashing his skull against the ground until Todd couldn’t even find all the pieces to put him back together; he had to do something. 

Todd must have been coming to the end of his lecture; Dean hadn’t really been paying attention, but these were always the same, and Todd had taken on that sickly sweet, _ patronizing _ tone. Just begging Dean to _ try harder, _ that he _ believed in him, _ that Dean was _ his _and would always be. 

And Dean could just feel the air around him becoming _ thinner _ as Todd took a step towards him, that delicate machinery inside him speeding up and going completely haywire as Dean knew Todd was about to touch him. 

The second that Todd extended his arm, opening his palm, Dean slammed his arm into Todd’s side.

And _ holy _ ** _shit, _ ** maybe Todd actually was actually serious when he whined all about not wanting Dean to hurt himself; Dean didn’t think he even _ had _ nerve endings, but the impact and the subsequent shattering made it feel like his entire arm had been plunged into a blender, those same blades scratching up through the rest of his body and being shoved down his throat, and he _ especially _ wanted to fucking die now, more than ever.

… But at the same time, it was oddly freeing. Exhilarating, that act of rebellion, that reaction from Todd, that shock and panic and _ pain; _ only a tiny fraction of what he had put Dean through, but so _ delicious. _If this was why Todd did all of this in the first place, Dean honestly kind of understood.

… But that implied Todd hated Dean, which he wasn’t sure if that really added up. But that wasn’t what he needed to worry about in that moment; this was his _ chance. _

With his newly found completely _ fucked _ arm, basically severed at the elbow, what remained wasn’t particularly strong, but _ sharp. _The inside was hollow, like Dean had expected, but the porcelain was thicker than he had thought, and it had left him with quite a lot more to work with.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Dean shut his eyes and took what remained of his arm, plunging it into Todd’s stomach.

Dean could just _ feel _ the pressure, cracking him even further and raising the chances that he would shatter completely before he had the chance to make it out of here, but he didn’t care. He could just feel the _ blood _fill him up, pouring out when he wrenched his arm out of Todd’s gut, noticing how it stained the perfectly white porcelain when he actually built up the courage to open his eyes. 

And the second Todd was on the ground, Dean took off running. 

He didn’t know where, or how long he’d need to run for, or how long he even _ could _ before the cracks that crept up his legs with every footstep brought him to the ground and shattered him, but he didn’t care. There was a hallway in front of him, a Todd behind him- he had no idea if Todd was actually dead, if he even could _ be _ killed, but he didn’t care about that either. He didn’t care about how these shoes hurt his feet, hurriedly kicking them off before continuing on his way, and he didn’t care about how inconvenient this whole outfit was for running. He didn’t care about the pain that consumed him with every movement, every piece of him that wanted to shatter. He didn’t care about the others, or Todd, even if he lived or died, truly; all he cared about was getting away. For the first time, his _ only _true moment of solitude, freedom.

He had no idea if something was really happening or if he was just imagining it, the pain catching up to him and all; but the further he got away, the more it felt like he was back in the game, _ human. _ Running without breaking, not fragile parts ticking in his chest but a fast beating heart, no longer trapped within the confines of a dollhouse, but with a whole _ universe _to explore. 

He felt like a child. Allowed to run free, unsupervised and in the middle of the road, but just so _ happy. _Like a kid on Halloween, hurrying up and down the sidewalk, after being turned away from every house and dealt out every trick; finally, he’d gotten his treat.

Slowly, after what felt like ages, the seemingly never ending hallway led to a light, and Dean couldn’t see through the tears streaming down his cheeks.

He could cry again, somehow. And with it, a scream was ripped from his lungs, one of long awaited _ release, _as he gave himself up to the light. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we did it,,, holy fuck,,, wahhh thank you so much for reading whether you've gone through this whole thing or just popped in and out, man this was so much fun,, this chapter was so therapeutic too its what he deserves,, not the shattering his whole arm thing dfhgdf but murdering todd and then getting away wahhh,,, shout out to todd by the way dfhgd ily sir im sorry for making you into an absolute douchebag for all of this but. it had to be done 😔
> 
> I am just,, so happy bro,, I gotta stop myself here before I repeat myself for a thousand years again but just thank yall so much ily guys,,,, happy halloween yo,, mwah


End file.
